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CONSUMERS 
AND  SOCIAL  REFORM 


CONSUMERS 
AND  SOCIAL  REFORM 


BY 

JOHN  ELLIOT  ROSS,  C.S.P.,  A.M. 


SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  CATHOLIC 
UNIVERSITY  OF  AMERICA  IN 
PARTIAL  FULFILMENT  OF  THE 
REQUIREMENTS  FOR  THE  DEGREE 
OF    DOCTOR     OF     PHILOSOPHY. 


NEW  YORK 

THE  DEVIN-ADAIR  COMPANY 

1912 


u 


/^•'5'' 

(n^^., 


a^- 


Copyright,  191 2,  by 
The  Devin-Adair  Company 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
The  Point  at  Issue       3 

CHAPTER  n 
Obligations  of  the  Consuming  Class       .       8 

CHAPTER  III 
What  is  a  Just  Employer? 38 

CHAPTER  IV 
Theory  of  Industrial  Organization       .     47 

CHAPTER  V 
Industrial  Conditions:  Wages       ,     ,     ,     66 

CHAPTER  VI 
Industrial  Conditions:  Health     ,     ,     .     jj 

CHAPTER  VII 
Industrial  Conditions:  Morals     '•"95 

CHAPTER  VIII 

What  Should  the  Individual  Consumer 

Do? 107 

Appendix 133 

Bibliography 135 


255646 


CONSUMERS  AND 
WAGE-EARNERS 


CHAPTER  ONE 

THE  POINT  AT  ISSUE 

HAVE  you  ever  stood  in  a  country  store 
and  from  the  superior  heights  of  mature 
wisdom  watched  a  chubby-faced,  bright-eyed 
boy  invest  a  penny  in  a  prize-bag?  To  you  it 
is  simply  a  paper  enclosing  a  few  nuts,  a  piece 
of  candy,  and  a  variable  quantity  in  the  shape 
of  a  tin  flag,  an  imitation  ring,  etc.  But  to  the 
child  there  is  an  excitement  in  getting  one 
knows  not  what.  All  the  gambling  instincts 
of  the  race  that  squanders  thousands  upon  the 
turf,  all  the  love  of  adventure  that  peopled  our 
continent,  are  summed  up  in  that  one  act.  The 
child  has,  perhaps,  contentedly  endured  the 
routine  of  the  farm  for  weeks  in  the  anticipa- 
tion of  this  one  moment  of  blissful  joy  when 
his  anxious  fingers  nervously  reveal  the  delight 
or  the  disappointment. 

Years  have  brought  wisdom  (or  is  it  disillu- 
sionment?) and  imitation  rings  no  longer  have 
the  same  importance  in  our  eyes.    No  matter 
1:33 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

how  wistfully  we  may  look  back,  those  days 
will  never  return.  Yet  prize-bags  may  once 
again  loom  large  in  our  intellectual  horizon, 
though  with  a  difference.  This  time  we  look 
beyond  the  rosy-cheeked,  healthy  country  lad, 
bred  amid  the  beauties  of  God's  fields  and  nour- 
ished with  unadulterated  home  products,  to  the 
pale,  nervous,  over-worked  girls  who  spend 
their  days  filling  these  bags.  In  an  ill-lighted, 
ill-ventilated  room,  in  a  great  dusty,  dirty  city 
they  work  feverishly  for  ten  hours  at  the  rate 
of  four  cents  a  hundred  bags.  "They  stand  at 
a  table  with  boxes  before  them,  from  which 
they  take  peanuts,  candy  and  prizes  with  quick 
automatic  motion.  They  turn  down  the  cor- 
ners of  each  bag,  and  string  the  bags  when  full 
in  long  bulky  curls  of  seventy-two."^ 

Speeding  to  the  utmost  they  cannot  make 
enough  to  live  on.  A  room  in  a  cheap  board- 
ing-house, morally  and  physically  dirty,  insuffi- 
cient food,  and  no  chance  for  legitimate  pleas- 
ures—this is  the  prize-bag  life  holds  for  them. 
What  wonder  if  the  temptation  to  supplement 
these  wages  in  the  way  always  possible  for 
women  prove  too  strong?    Who  is  to  blame? 

1  "Women  and  the  Trades,"  The  Pittsburgh  Survey,  by  Eliza- 
beth Beardsley  Butler:  N.  Y.,  1909:  p.  47. 


THE  POINT  AT  ISSUE 

Is  the  little  chap  hundreds  of  miles  away  in  the 
country,  happily  unconscious  of  their  existence, 
in  any  way  responsible?  This  is  the  question 
with  which  we  are  going  to  busy  ourselves. 

Our  little  boy  and  over-worked  girl  are  not, 
probably,  typical  Consumers  and  Producers. 
Still  they  represent  large  numbers  of  the  eco- 
nomic world,  and  the  solidarity  of  industry  is 
such  that  one  could  not  exist  without  the  other. 
In  a  way,  the  country  lad  is  a  shadow  of  Presi- 
dent Taft  pressing  a  button  to  start  the  ma- 
chinery of  a  world's  fair.  The  child,  with  won- 
derful effect  on  others,  furnishes  a  portion  of 
the  nation's  industrial  mechanism.  In  the  sat- 
isfaction of  his  own  desires,  he  is  all  unconscious 
of  this,  and  unconscious,  too  of  the  responsi- 
biUties  of  power  that  modern  social  workers 
would  thrust  upon  him. 

It  was  once,  indeed,  the  object  of  reformers 
to  excite  a  sense  of  wrong  in  the  oppressed. 
The  fashion  found  expression  in  Thomas 
Paine's  "Rights  of  Man."  Now  their  purpose 
is  also  to  arouse  a  sense  of  obligation  in  the 
powerful,  and  the  change  of  front  is  indicated 
by  Mazzini's  "Duties  of  Man."  One  duty  after 
another  has  been  forced  upon  the  race's  con- 
science, and  to-day  the  attempt  is  made  to  com- 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

pel  the  final,  and  some  say  the  most  powerful, 
element  of  the  industrial  world,— the  Con- 
sumer,—to  shoulder  his  share  of  responsibility. 

Briefly,  the  line  of  argument  is  this :  Labor- 
ers have  a  right  to  "a  fair  wage  for  a  fair  day's 
work."  If  employers  fail  in  their  duty  of  meet- 
ing this  right,  then  the  obligation  neglected  by 
the  employers  must  be  assumed  by  those  who 
also  benefit  by  the  laborers'  work, — by  the  Con- 
suming Class.  At  first,  the  obligation  is  made 
abstract  and  hypothetical  in  this  way  because 
of  difficulties  in  establishing  the  concrete  con- 
tent of  the  workman's  right  to  a  fair  wage,  and 
just  what  line  of  conduct  is  incumbent  upon 
the  individual  Consumer  confronted  by  this  sit- 
uation. Persons  who  readily  agree  that  the  la- 
borer has  a  right  to  a  fair  wage,  and  that  if  this 
right  is  violated  the  Consumer  ought  to  do 
something,  will  wrangle  unendingly  as  to  just 
what  is  a  fair  wage  and  just  what  a  Consumer 
ought  to  do. 

After  fixing  this  general  obligation  upon  the 
Consuming  Class,  however,  the  other  question 
as  to  whether  the  employers  are  actually  neg- 
lecting their  duties  towards  their  employees, 
and  what  the  individual  Consumer  can  and 
should  do,  will  be  considered. 

[6] 


THE  POINT  AT  ISSUE 

The  fixing  of  an  abstract,  hypothetical  obli- 
gation for  a  whole  class,  rather  than  a  concrete 
duty  for  a  particular  individual,  is  not  useless. 
If  it  is  proved,  that,  provided  employers  neg- 
lect their  duties  and  the  Consuming  Class  can 
do  anything  to  fulfill  them,  there  is  an  obliga- 
tion upon  the  Consuming  Class  to  carry  out 
these  duties— if  this  is  established,  it  is  only 
necessary  when  a  particular  case  presents  itself 
to  ask :  Have  the  men  through  whose  labor  this 
Consimier  is  benefiting  been  unjustly  treated 
by  their  employers,  and  can  this  Consimier, 
without  a  disproportionately  grave  inconven- 
ience, do  anything  to  help  them? 

Unless  both  questions  are  answered  in  the 
affirmative,  this  particular  individual  Con- 
sumer can  have  no  duty  of  fulfilling  the  ab- 
stract obligation.  This  is  much  easier  than 
working  out  the  principle  anew  for  each  case. 
It  is  the  difference  between  blowing  bottles  and 
molding  them. 


171 


CHAPTER  TWO 

OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

PRACTICALLY  all  are  agreed  on  the 
fundamental  point  that  laborers  have  a 
right  to  a  fair  wage  for  a  fair  day's  work.  Leo 
XIII  has  said,  that  though  contracts  between 
laborers  and  employers  are  free,  "nevertheless, 
there  is  a  dictate  of  natural  justice  underlying 
them  more  imperious  than  any  bargain  between 
man  and  man,  that  remuneration  ought  to  be 
sufficient  to  support  a  frugal  and  well-behaved 
wage-earner."  ^  Later  in  the  same  encyclical, 
he  indicates  that  this  wage  should  be  large 
enough  to  enable  a  workman  to  "maintain  him- 
self, his  wife  and  his  children  in  reasonable 
comfort"  (p.  237),  and  allow  a  margin  for 
saving  against  a  rainy  day. 

The  present  Pope,  Pius  X,  has  quoted  these 
words  of  his  predecessor  and  agreed  that  work- 
men have  a  strict  right  in  justice  to  a  fair  wage, 
time  to  fulfill  their  religious  duties,  and  free- 

1  Great  Encyclicals  of  Leo  XIII,  "On  the  Condition  of  Labor," 
p.  236  :  N.  Y.,  1903. 

[8] 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

dom  from  work  unsuited  to  their  age,  strength, 
or  sex.^  The  Rev.  J.  Kelleher,  one  of  the  most 
recent  and  respected  writers  on  the  question, 
goes  even  further.  ''The  right  to  work,''  he 
says,  "or  some  other  right  that  will  secure  an 
opportunity  of  providing  for  reasonable  living 
to  the  less  fortunate  members  of  the  social  body 
who  do  not  happen  to  be  possessed  of  property, 
is  an  essential  condition  of  any  equitable  eco- 
nomic system."  ^ 

Cardinal  Capecelatro  has  said  that  each  one 
has  "a  right  to  raise  himself  towards  the  infi- 
nite, a  right  to  the  intellectual  nourishment 
of  religion,  and,  therefore,  a  right  to  the  time 
necessary  for  the  worship  of  God,  a  right  to 
repose,  a  right  to  honest  enjoyment,  a  right  to 
love  in  marriage,  and  the  life  of  the  home.  In 
woman  Christianity  recognizes  with  her  func- 
tion of  child-bearing  in  Christian  marriage,  a 
right  to  the  time  for  the  nurture  of  her  children. 
In  children  it  recognizes  a  right  to  the  supreme 
benefit  of  health,  given  them  by  God,  but  en- 
dangered by  overmuch  work.  In  young  girls 
it  recognizes  a  right  to  such  moderation  in  their 

2  "Pope  Pius  X  01.  Social  Reform,"  London,  1910:  p.  8. 

3  Kelleher,  "Private  Ownership,"  Dublin,  1911:  p.  174;  cf. 
also  p.  179.     Italics  added. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

duties  as  may  assure  them  health  and  strength. 
In  all,  finally,  it  acknowledges  the  immortal 
soul,  with  its  rights  to  education,  to  salvation, 
to  the  time  that  these  things  need."  ^ 

Now  when  Pope  Leo  and  the  other  authori- 
ties quoted  used  the  words  "right,"  "just," 
"duty,"  what  did  they  mean?  These  words  are 
often  employed  vaguely  and  carelessly,  but  we 
may  be  sure  that  here  they  were  taken  in  a  strict 
and  well-defined  sense,  such  as  usually  found 
among  Catholic  ethicists. 

A  right,  as  it  is  thus  ordinarily  defined,  is  "a 
legitimate  power  of  doing  or  acquiring  some- 
thing for  one's  own  good."  ^ 

The  word  power  is  not  taken  here  in  the 
sense  of  physical  ability.  It  means  that  moral 
potency  or  capacity  without  which  nothing  can 
be  acquired  or  recovered:  for  a  person  may 
have  a  right  to  do  what  he  has  not  the  physi- 
cal power  to  perform.  "Legitimate"  means 
granted  by  or  conformable  to  law:  hence  we 
have  not  a  right  to  do  everything  for  which  we 
have  the  physical  power. 

Once  we  get  this  idea  of  "right"  &rmly  fixed 

*  "Christ,  the  Church,  and  Man,"  p.  74:  St.  Louis,  1909. 
sGury:  "Compendium  theologise  moralis,"  n.  579:  De  just,  et 
jure:  Ratisbon,  1874. 

DO] 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

in  our  minds,  the  concepts  of  "justice,"  "injus- 
tice," and  "duty"  easily  follow.  For  "justice," 
in  a  definition  of  Ulpian  that  has  been  accepted 
all  down  the  ages  since,  is  simply  the  constant 
and  perpetual  will  of  giving  to  each  one  his 
right.^  And  injustice,  naturally,  is  merely  a 
voluntary  violation  of  another's  right. 

A  "duty"  is  simply  the  obverse  of  a  right,  it 
is  the  obligation  corresponding  to  a  right.  Or 
as  Bouquillon  put  it,  it  is  "something  reason- 
ably due  from  one  person  to  another  because  of 
a  necessary  connection  between  the  end  to  be 
attained  and  the  means  used."^  As  the  end 
varies  between  justice  and  charity,  so  does  the 
duty.  In  the  one  case,  our  object  is  to  fulfill 
the  precept,  "love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself";  in 
the  other,  to  give  to  each  man  what  he  has  a 
right  to  have. 

The  fundamental  concept  of  a  "right"  may 
be  looked  at  from  four  points  of  view:  (a)  the 
subject,  or  who  has  the  right;  (b)  the  matter, 
or  content  of  the  right;  (c)  the  title  or  reason 
for  the  right;  (d)  and  finally,  the  term,  or  who 
has  to  respect  the  right. 

Asking  these  questions  about  the  right  at 
present  under  consideration,  we  find  that  the 

«  See  Appendix,  1.  f  See  Appendix,  Q. 

nil] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

subject  of  the  right  is  each  individual  who  con- 
tributes to  the  production  or  distribution  of  the 
articles  purchased  by  the  Consumer.  The  con- 
tent of  this  right  we  have  already  given  in  the 
words  of  Leo  XIII  and  others.  Briefly,  it 
may  be  summarized  as  the  right  to  a  decent 
living. 

On  what  grounds  have  employees  these 
rights?  By  the  very  fact  that  they  are  men; 
that  is,  intelligent  beings  destined  for  a  su- 
pernatural end.  Therefore  these  rights  are 
connatural^  as  belonging  to  them  by  their  na- 
ture; inalienable^  because  they  cannot  be  re- 
nounced; perfect,  because  so  strict  that  the 
duties  corresponding  to  them  are  matters  of 
commutative  justice. 

And  who  has  the  duties  corresponding  to  the 
workman's  right  to  a  decent  living?  Primar- 
ily, the  direct  employer.  He  has  a  strict  duty 
of  justice  in  the  matter.  If  he  fulfill  it,  then 
no  one  else  is  bound.  But  in  the  case  before  us, 
we  assume  that  the  direct  employer  has  failed 
to  do  his  strict  duty  of  commutative  justice  to 
his  employees.  It  makes  no  difference  whether 
the  direct  employer  be  formally  guilty  or  not. 
He  may  be  unable  to  perform  his  duty,  or  he 
may  wilfully  neglect  it.    That  does  not  matter. 

D2] 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

De  facto,  he  does  neglect  it.    What  then  is  the 
duty  of  the  Consuming  Class? 

We  think  that  the  Consuming  Class  is  bound 
to  assimie  the  obligations  that  the  direct  em- 
ployers have  neglected.  And  we  are  going  to 
support  this  contention  by  four  arguments. 
These  arguments  are : 

I.  The  devolution  of  duty  argument:  the  di- 
rect employer  has  failed  to  fulfill  his  duty,  and 
this  duty  thereupon  devolves  upon  the  indirect 
employer,  the  Consuming  Class. 

II.  The  value  argument:  ideally,  the  buyer 
of  an  article  is  bound  to  pay  its  value,  and,  as 
a  general  rule,  if  proper  economy  has  been  ex- 
ercised in  its  production,  this  must  be  sufficient 
to  pay  a  living  wage  to  the  men  engaged  in 
producing  and  distributing  that  article. 

III.  The  co-operation  argument:  the  direct 
employer  is  guilty  of  an  injustice  in  which  the 
Consuming  Class  is  bound  not  to  co-operate. 

IV.  The  social  argument:  it  is  for  the  com- 
mon good  that  the  average  employee  should  be 
paid  a  hving  wage.  And  since  the  Consuming 
Class  is  merely  the  body  pohtic,  from  one  point 
of  view,  it  is  bound  to  sacrifice  the  advantage 
of  cheap  buying  for  the  sake  of  the  rounded 
advantage  of  the  whole. 

CIS] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

I.  We  have  explained  briefly  to  what  every 
employee  has  a  right— that  is  to  say,  what  every 
employer  must  give  his  workmen,  or  commit 
injustice.  We  have  assumed,  further,  that  the 
employee  often  does  not  get  what  he  has  a  right 
to  have. 

Now,  this  is  not  always  the  employer's  fault. 
Often  an  employer  would  be  glad  to  raise 
wages,  to  improve  sanitary  conditions,  to 
shorten  hours,  but  the  stress  of  competition 
prevents  him. 

But  the  employer  being  unable  or  unwilling 
to  pay  a  proper  wage,  etc.,  what  becomes  of  the 
employee's  right?  Does  it  cease?  Has  he  no 
claim  upon  anyone  else? 

Those  who  would  fix  an  obhgation  on  the 
Consuming  Class  say  that  the  employee's  right 
does  not  cease.  He  has  a  claim,  they  contend, 
upon  all  who  in  any  way  benefit  by  his  labor, 
the  strength  of  the  claim  depending  upon  the 
closeness  of  the  relationship,  the  importance  of 
the  benefit  derived,  and  the  injustice  suifered. 

First  of  all,  they  point  out,  there  is  the  rent- 
taker.  But  for  the  labor  of  these  men  (as- 
sumed to  be  underpaid,  etc.),  there  would  be 
no  return  out  of  which  to  pay  rent.  For  the 
mere  fact  of  ownership,  which  in  itself  may  not 

D43 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

stand  for  any  addition  to  the  ground's  produc- 
tive capacity,  these  men  are  allowed  to  take  a 
part  at  least  of  what  would  be  necessary  to 
raise  the  condition  of  the  men  producing  the 
wealth  to  a  just  standard.  Therefore,  because 
the  rent-taker  seems  to  receive  the  most  gratui- 
tous benefit  from  the  employee,  the  duty  of  the 
employer  devolves  first  upon  him.  If  the  em- 
ployer fail,  wilfully  or  not,  to  fulfill  his  duties 
to  his  men,  then  they  become  binding  upon  the 
rent-taker. 

Should  he,  too,  fail,  the  laborer  still  has  a 
claim.  There  is  another  very  important  sharer 
in  distribution— the  interest-taker.  It  is  true 
that  the  product  is  the  joint  result  of  labor  and 
capital.  But  when  there  is  the  case  of  anony- 
mous, impersonal  capital  receiving  interest, 
and  Kving,  breathing,  human  machines  being 
under-fed  and  unprotected,  then  humanity's 
claims  supersede  those  of  capital.^  The  inalien- 
able rights  of  the  laborer,  which  Cardinal  Ca- 
pecelatro  has  so  excellently  summarized,  replace 
the  alienable  rights  of  the  individual  capitalists 
based  upon  the  mere  possession  of  property. 
The  interest-taker  is  bound  to  give  even  the 

8Cf.  John  A.  Ryan,  "The  Church  and  Interest-Taking,"  p. 
31:  St.  Louis,  1910. 

C153 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

whole  of  his  share  to  maintain  a  just  standard 
of  wages,  etc.  And  this  principle  is  admitted 
in  civil  law  by  making  wages  a  first  lien  upon 
the  product  and  exempting  wages  from  legal 
action.^ 

But  if  the  interest-taker,  also,  be  unwilling 
to  fulfill  his  duties,  there  is  still  an  economic  ele- 
ment upon  which  the  laborer  has  a  claim— the 
Consuming  Class.  Production  on  a  huge  scale, 
the  interposition  of  wholesalers  and  middlemen 
of  all  sorts,  shopping  by  mail  or  telephone, 
should  not  disguise  the  fact  that  the  Consum- 
ing Class  are  really  employers.  It  is  only  in 
an  indirect  way,  it  is  true,  but  still  a  real  way 
for  all  that.  If  the  direct"  employer,  the  rent- 
and  interest-taker  refuse  or  are  unable  to  per- 
form their  duties,  then  (leaving  aside  the  legis- 
lature for  the  present)  these  devolve  upon  the 
Consuming  Class  in  so  far  as  they  benefit  by 
the  laborer's  work. 

This  argument  for  the  obligation  of  the  Con- 
suming Class  is  based  upon  the  devolution  of 
duties.  Here  it  may  appear  new  and  strange, 
because  applied  to  a  new  field,  but  it  is  admitted 
elsewhere  as  beyond  contradiction.  If,  for  in- 
stance, parents  will  not  or  cannot  support  their 

9Cf.  Bull.  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  Jan.  1,  1911,  pp.  876,  878,  881. 
D63 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

children,  then  the  grandparents  have  just  as 
real  a  duty  towards  them  as  if  they  were  their 
own  immediate  children.  And  if  they,  too,  neg- 
lect this  duty,  then  it  devolves  upon  collateral 
relatives  until  finally  it  falls  on  mere  neighbors. 

Likewise,  the  Consuming  Class,  it  is  claimed, 
if  those  whose  duty  is  prior  to  theirs  refuse  to 
perform  it,  must  fulfill  the  duty  that  has  de- 
volved upon  them.  The  rent-  and  interest- 
taker  may  be  unjust  to  the  employee  and  to 
them,  but  that  is  not  a  valid  excuse. 

The  same  principle,  though  arrived  at  by  a 
different  process  of  reasoning,  underlies  the 
dictum,  coming  to  be  more  and  more  recog- 
nized by  legislators  and  economists,  that  the 
costs  of  production  should  be  borne  by  the  Con- 
sumers. That  is  to  say,  that  the  risks  of  profes- 
sional hazard  and  accidents  due  to  the  careless- 
ness of  fellow-servants  have  been  transferred 
from  the  employee  to  the  employer.  Naturally 
then,  the  employer  compensates  himself  out  of 
the  price. 

II.  This  question  of  the  duty  of  the  Con- 
suming Class  towards  the  men  who  make  or  sell 
the  goods  they  buy,  may  be  viewed  from  an- 
other angle  than  that  of  the  devolution  of  du- 
ties or  the  obligation  of  indirect  employers. 

D7] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  idea  of  indi- 
rect employer,  it  is  further  contended  that  the 
Consuming  Class,  simply  as  purchasers,  may 
be  guilty  of  injustice  in  another  sense. 

For  what  are  the  duties  of  the  buyer?  To 
pay  the  true  "value"  of  an  article.^^  And  what 
determines  the  true  value  of  an  article?  Not 
necessarily  the  price. 

This  may  be  fixed  by  law,  as  is  the  case  with 
bread  in  many  large  cities.  A  loaf  of  a  certain 
weight  must  be  sold  for  five  cents.  Or  we  may 
have  the  natural  or  market  price,  which  is  de- 
termined by  common  consent.  This  is  nothing 
more  than  the  price  resulting  from  the  interac- 
tion of  supply  and  demand. 

But  although  ordinarily,  justice  is  fulfilled 
if  a  person  pay  either  the  legal  or  market  price, 
neither  is  really  based  on  justice.  The  price 
fixed  by  law  will  come  closer  to  being  a  just 
price.  In  a  self-governing  community,  it  prob- 
ably will  not  do  a  great  injustice  to  either  party 
for  any  length  of  time.  In  this  country  its  field 
is  so  limited,  that  it  may  be  disregarded  in  the 
present  discussion. 

The  market  price,  however,  makes  no  pre- 

10  Cf.  St.  Thomas,  Summa,  2a  2ae,  Q.77,  A.  1-2;  St.  Alphonsus, 
Lib.  IV,  Tr.  V,  n.  793. 

'\ 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

tense  of  being  determined  by  justice.  It  is  the 
shrewdness  of  one  man  pitted  against  the 
shrewdness  of  another,  or  even  the  greed  of  one 
against  the  other's  need.  One  wants  to  sell  for 
as  high  a  price  while  the  other  wants  to  buy  for 
as  low  a  price  as  he  can.  When  there  are  nu- 
merous buyers  and  nvmierous  sellers,  all  know- 
ing their  business  pretty  well,  the  result  will  be 
a  close  approximation  to  what  would  be  a  just 
price,  if  the  cost  to  the  entrepreneur  producing 
the  commodities  or  the  person  managing  the 
distributing  agency  were  all  that  should  be 
taken  into  consideration.  In  a  society  where 
the  actual  producer  sells  directly  to  the  Con- 
sumer, where  there  is  no  production  on  an  enor- 
mous scale  employing  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  hands  who  have  no  voice  in  fixing  the  price 
of  the  product,  then  the  price  reached  by  the 
higgling  of  the  market  is  likely  to  be  just. 

Under  the  medieval  system  of  craftsmen  and 
one  or  two  journeymen  or  apprentices  who 
formed  part  of  the  household  it  was  possible 
(by  lack  of  competition)  to  maintain  the  rate 
of  reward  by  limiting  the  supply.  "No  serious 
attempt  was  made  to  push  trade  or  develop 
business,  but  only  to  carry  on  each  trade  ac- 
cording to  the  habitual  rate  of  reward.  Accord- 

D93 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

ing  to  this  policy,  the  conditions  of  the  pro- 
ducer were  allowed  to  be  the  first  consideration, 
and  the  consumer  had  to  pay  a  price  at  which 
these  conditions  could  be  maintained."  ^^ 

But  conditions  of  business  have  changed  im- 
mensely since  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Indus- 
trial Revolution  has  brought  big  scale  produc- 
tion, driving  out  of  existence  the  small  pro- 
ducer ministering  directly  and  immediately  to 
the  wants  of  the  community.  Department 
stores  have  supplied  the  same  principle  in  the 
distributing  end  of  industry,  and  very  largely 
replaced  the  small  retailer.  The  employees  of 
the  big  producer  and  distributor,  the  ones  most 
concerned,  have  no  voice  in  fixing  the  price  of 
the  article  made  or  distributed  by  their  labor. 
As  a  consequence  competition  will  often  de- 
press the  price  below  the  point  where  it  will 
yield  a  living  wage  to  them.  Not  their  rights 
determine  this  point,  but  what  crude  irresistible 
hunger  will  force  them  to  accept.  Many  times 
it  is  only  a  difference  between  starving  rapidly 
or  slowly.    But  competition  is  inexorable. 

It  is  true,  that  sometimes  the  actual  produc- 
ers or  distributors  may  not  be  getting  living 

11 W.  Cunningham,  "Christianity  and  Social  Questions,"  p.  114: 
London,    1910. 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

wages  because  the  entrepreneurs  or  the  rent- 
er the  interest-takers  are  absorbing  too  much. 
But  ordinarily  it  is  probable  that  stress  of  com- 
petition between  capitalists  and  between  man- 
agers will  keep  their  shares  within  fairly  mod- 
erate bounds.  Capital  competes  with  capital 
for  a  share  in  production  just  as  one  firm  com- 
petes with  another  to  secure  a  market  for  its 
product.  Hence  it  may  be  reasonably  pre- 
simied  in  any  given  case,  when  nothing  is 
known  to  the  contrary,  that  where  the  laborers 
are  insufficiently  remunerated,  it  is  because  the 
price  obtained  for  their  product  will  not  cover 
just  wages.  Nor  are  appearances  always  a  safe 
guide.  A  man  who  owns  and  manages  a  fac- 
tory (thus  drawing  by  himself  alone  wages  of 
management,  rent,  and  interest)  may  seem 
able  easily  to  afford  higher  wages.  Yet  to  di- 
vide his  whole  income  among  all  his  employees 
might  give  only  an  inappreciable  increase  to 
each. 

Therefore,  it  would  seem  that  the  principle 
of  the  market  price  being  just,  cannot  be  ap- 
plied strictly  to-day.  On  the  contrary,  many 
persons  are  claiming  that  the  market  price 
fixed  by  competition  is  usually  unjust.  A  bet- 
ter principle,  a  more  fundamental  principle, 
1:21] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

one  that  really  strikes  its  roots  down  into  jus- 
tice itself,  would  be  to  say  that  a  just  price  is 
one  that  will  yield  a  just  return  to  all  concerned 
—the  actual  laborers  who  produce  the  commod- 
ities, the  clerks  in  the  stores  that  distribute 
them,  wages  of  management  to  the  entrepre- 
neurs concerned,  and  interest  on  the  capital  in- 
vested. 

Certainly  if  this  be  not  done,  the  equality 
between  the  "value"  of  the  article  and  the  price 
is  not  preserved.  And  as  Ballerini  says,  "when 
the  equality  is  not  preserved,  so  that  the  seller 
sells  for  more  than  the  highest  price  or  the 
buyer  buys  for  less  than  the  lowest  ...  in- 
justice is  conmiitted."  ^^ 

But  even  though  the  price  asked  were  suffi- 
cient to  pay  the  employees  just  wages  and  the 
entrepreneur  simply  refused  to  do  it,  would  the 
Consuming  Class  be  justified  in  buying  the 
article?  It  is  contended  that  they  would  not. 
For  one  of  the  duties  of  the  seller  is  to  give  a 
just  title.  And  it  would  seem  clear  that  one 
who  hires  a  person  to  make  a  certain  article, 
playing  upon  his  necessity  to  avoid  paying 
what  his  labor  is  worth,  has  not  acquired  a  just 
title  to  the  object  produced.    There  is  some- 

12  See  Appendix,  3, 

1:223 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

thing  in  that  article  for  which  he  has  not  paid. 
Human  flesh  and  blood  that  has  not  been  com- 
pensated for  have  gone  into  its  making.  The 
seller  not  having  a  good  title  himself,  cannot 
transfer  such  to  another.  Persons  who  buy 
from  him  do  not,  therefore,  secure  a  just  title, 
and  hence,  it  is  argued,  commit  a  grave  injus- 
tice by  buying  such  an  article.  ^^ 

III.  The  third  argument  adduced  in  favor 
of  an  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  Consuming 
Class  is,  that  the  purchase  of  articles  made  un- 
der unjust  conditions  is  co-operation  in  the  in- 
justice. It  makes  no  difference  whether  or  not 
the  employers  are  formally  guilty  of  injustice. 
They  may  be  forced  by  the  competitive  system, 
as  many  contend,  to  underpay  their  workmen. 
Nevertheless,  material  injustice  at  least  is  com- 
mitted, and  the  Consuming  Class  have  no  right 
to  co-operate  formally  in  what  may  be  merely 
material  injustice  for  another.  Yet  the  Con- 
suming Class  by  buying  goods  made  under  un- 
just conditions  does  co-operate,  it  is  alleged,  in 
three  ways:  (A)  as  the  recipient  of  the  result 
of  the  injustice;  (B)  by  furnishing  the  means 
for  the  act;  (C)  and  by  counselling  the  action. 
"For  a  co-operator  is  one  who  at  the  same 

18  Cf .  Liguori,  1.  c. 

CSS] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

time  with  another  is  the  cause  of  the  injury, 
whether  secondary  or  equally  principal,  whether 
positive  or  negative.  For  there  is  not  the  same 
manner  of  co-operation  in  all  cases,  but  this  is 
common  to  all,  that  one  person  should  concur 
with  another  to  commit  an  injury."  ^* 

(A)  One  of  the  ways  of  positively  co-operat- 
ing with  an  injustice,  is  by  receiving  the  results 
of  the  injustice.  Thus  a  thief  will  not  steal  a 
bulky  piece  of  silver  imless  he  has  a  fence  to 
receive  it,  and  the  fence  becomes  guilty  of  the 
theft  by  receiving  the  article.  So  a  business 
man  will  not  manufacture  an  article  and  thus 
commit  an  injustice  against  the  laborers  whom 
he  underpays,  unless  he  is  reasonably  sure  some 
one  will  receive  this  article  after  it  is  made.  The 
persons  who  receive  it,  then,  or  the  purchasers, 
it  is  argued,  are  in  the  position  of  the  thief's 
fence:  They  are  receiving  an  article  that  was 
obtained  by  injustice;  and  it  matters  not 
whether  the  article  was  stolen  outright  or  the 
injustice  committed  in  a  more  gentlemanly 
way.  Nor  does  the  fact  of  the  manufacturer 
committing  the  injustice  to  increase  his  profits, 
rather  than  (as  has  been  shown  elsewhere)  to 
meet  a  demand  for  cheapness  on  the  part  of  the 

14  See  Appendix,  4. 
1:243 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

Consuming  Class,  alter  the  situation.  For  a 
thief  steals  for  his  own  enrichment,  not  for  the 
advantage  of  the  recipient  of  the  stolen  goods. ^^ 
(B)  One  can  co-operate  in  an  injustice  not 
only  by  receiving  the  results,  but  by  furnishing 
the  means  for  committing  the  injustice,  and  it 
is  contended  that  the  Consuming  Class  co-op- 
erate also  in  this  way.  Nor  is  this  simply  a  dif- 
ferent name  for  the  co-operation  just  consid- 
ered. For  in  the  previous  case,  the  Consuming 
Class  co-operated  with  an  act  already  per- 
formed in  anticipation  of  this  co-operation. 
Whereas  in  the  phase  now  under  discussion  they 
co-operate  with  an  act  to  be  done  in  the  future. 
A  concrete  example  will  make  this  clear.    Mr. 

invests  $50,000  in  the  shoe  business.  After 

paying  for  his  plant,  raw  material,  and  the 
wages  of  his  men  until  he  has  produced  mar- 
ketable articles,  he  has  practically  nothing  left. 
His  continuance  in  business  depends  upon  his 
selling  these  articles  to  gain  money  for  current 
expenses.  The  purchasers  of  these  goods  co- 
operate (by  receiving  the  articles)  in  the  injus- 
tice under  which  they  are  assumed  to  have  been 
manufactured,  and  also,  by  furnishing  the  nec- 
essary means,  in  the  injustice  he  will  commit  by 

15  Cf.  De  Lugo,  XIX,  II,  4-5. 

1:253 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

manufacturing  more  under  the  same  condi- 
tions. 

(C)  Nor  is  the  Consuming  Class's  co-opera- 
tion yet  exhausted.  For  they  may  be  looked 
upon  as  truly  counselling,  voting  for  this  injus- 
tice on  the  part  of  the  manufacturer.  The  Con- 
sumers do  not  go  personally  to  the  manufac- 
turer and  urge  him  to  produce  a  certain  article 
at  a  certain  price,  nor  do  they  vote  as  specifi- 
cally as  an  alderman  for  a  contract  with  a  fac- 
tory, but  their  action  amounts  to  practically 
the  same  thing.  They  go  from  one  store  to  an- 
other seeking  the  cheapest  price,  and  the  manu- 
facturer knows  this.  To  meet  this  demand  (a 
very  real,  though  to  some  extent  impersonal) 
demand  for  cheapness,  the  manufacturer  com- 
mits the  injustice  of  underpaying  his  em- 
ployees. It  makes  no  difference  whether  you 
call  this  "demand,"  or  "counsel,"  or  "voting," 
it  is  the  real  cause  of  the  injustice,  and  hence 
the  Consuming  Class  are  guilty  of  co-opera- 
tion.'^ 

It  makes  no  difference  if  the  Consumer 
knows  that  the  injustice  will  continue  whether 
he  purchase  or  not.'^  In  purchasing  he  is  guilty 

16  Cf.  De  Lugo,  L.  c,  XVII,  II,  n.  37. 

17  L.  c,  n.  16,  n.  19. 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

of  a  moral  wrong.  For  as  a  man  who  buys  a 
ticket  for  an  obscene  show,  co-operates  in  this 
obscenity  even  though  his  money  be  not  neces- 
sary for  its  production,  so  do  they  participate 
in  the  manufacturer's  injustice. ^^  Or,  to  give 
Ballerini's  illustration,  if  ten  men  suffice  to 
launch  a  ship  and  an  eleventh  helps,  certainly 
he  is  truly  said  to  be  helpful.  ^^  In  the  same 
way.  Consumers  who  buy  an  article  that  was 
made  imder  unjust  conditions  co-operate  in  this 
injustice  even  though  it  would  have  taken  place 
without  the  money  received  from  their  pur- 
chase. 

For  these  reasons,  it  is  contended,  the  Con- 
suming Class,  in  buying  goods  made  under  un- 
just terms,  co-operate  in  this  injustice  by  re- 
ceiving the  goods,  by  furnishing  the  means  for 
committing  the  injustice,  and  by  urging  such 
production  by  practical  financial  support. 

IV.  We  now  come  to  the  social  argument j 
that  is  especially  popular  to-day,  though  it  is 
by  no  means  new.  It  was  familiar  to  the  Scho- 
lastics, and  it  was  pithily  formulated  by  Suarez 
as,  "Public  is  to  be  preferred  to  private  good."  ^^ 

18  Liguori,  Lib.  IV,  Tr.  IV,  n.  42T. 

19  Ballerini,  op.  cit..  Vol.  II,  pp.  696-7. 

20  See  Appendix,  5. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

Aquinas  expresses  it  more  at  length :  "For  any 
individual  in  respect  to  what  he  is  and  has  is 
related  to  the  multitude,  just  as  a  part  is  re- 
lated to  the  whole:  whence  nature  sometimes 
injures  a  part  to  save  the  whole."  ^^  Elsewhere, 
Suarez  confers  upon  the  civil  law  the  power  of 
binding  in  conscience  because  "this  power  is 

necessary  for  the  good  government  of  the  re- 
public." ^^ 

Various  extremely  important  and  far-reach- 
ing rights  and  obligations  are  fixed  by  this  ar- 
gument. It  is  lawful,  for  instance,  for  the  state 
to  kill  criminals  "if  they  are  dangerous  and  in- 
jurious to  the  community."  ^^  Ballerini  says  it 
is  lawful  to  kill  a  criminal  in  so  far  as  it  is  or- 
dained for  the  safety  of  the  whole  society.^^ 
But  only  the  properly  appointed  persons  have 
this  right,  because  greater  evils  would  befall 
the  state  if  each  one  were  the  judge  in  his  own 
case.  (L.  c.)  And  not  only  may  the  state  di- 
rectly kill  a  guilty  person,  it  may  also,  when 
necessary  for  the  common  good  indirectly  kill 
an  innocent  person.^^     Wholesale  organized 

21  See  Appendix,  6. 

22  See  Appendix,  7. 

23  Aquinas,  1.  c,  Q.64,  A. 2. 

24  L.  c,  Pt.  I,  Tr.  VI,  Sec.  V,  n.  49. 

25  Liguori,  1.  c,  Lib.  IV,  Tr.  IV,  n.  393  ;  Ballerini,  1.  c,  n.  62. 

[283 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

slaughter,  called  war,  is  right  and  proper  when 
the  good  of  the  state  requires  it.^^  Whereas 
sedition  is  wrong,  because  it  violates  the  good 
of  "public  quiet  and  civil  concord."  ^^ 

Again,  while  suicide  is  unlawful,  because,  for 
one  reason,  a  man  is  part  of  the  community  and 
whoever  kills  himself  does  an  injury  to  the  com- 
munity, a  man  may  yet  lawfully  expose  himself 
to  certain  death  for  the  good  of  the  community. 
Similarly,  though  it  is  ilhcit  to  cut  off  a  mem- 
ber of  the  body,  because  it  is  a  part  of  the  whole 
and  cannot  be  removed  without  injuring  the 
whole  (Aquinas,  1.  c,  Q.  65,  A.  1) ,  Liguori  ap- 
proves of  at  least  one  form  of  serious  mutila- 
tion for  the  good  of  the  community.^  ^ 

Private  property  is  justified  because  it  tends 
to  the  peace  of  the  state.^^  Lehmkuhl  deter- 
mines the  gravity  of  an  injustice  not  only  from 
the  injury  done  to  the  individual,  but  also, 
"from  the  injury  and  danger  which  the  public 
good  and  security  would  suffer,  if  it  were  al- 
lowed with  impunity."  ^^ 

2«  Liguori,  1.  c,  n.  402. 

27  Ballerini,  1.  c,  n.  126. 

28  Liguori,  1.  c,  n.  374. 

29  Aquinas,  1.  c,  Q^M,  A.2;  Noldin,  I.  c,  De  Sept.  Praec, 
n.  368,  ed.  8a. 

30  See  Appendix,  8. 

[29] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

Social  necessity,  then,  is  widely  recognized 
as  a  valid  proof  for  a  right  or  duty.  The  bind- 
ing force  of  civil  law,  the  wickedness  of  suicide 
and  self -mutilation,  the  morality  of  executing 
guilty  and  innocent,  the  righteousness  of  pri- 
vate property,  are  all  settled  by  this  norm. 
Therefore,  since  the  social  necessity  of  the  aver- 
age workman  getting  a  living  wage  is  beyond 
contradiction,  the  Consuming  Class,  who  bene- 
fit especially  by  the  labor  of  these  workmen, 
are  especially  bound  to  see  that  these  rights  are 
obtained. 

We  have  now  considered  the  arguments  ad- 
vanced to  prove  that  justice  binds  the  Consum- 
ing Class  to  see  to  it  that  goods  are  made  under 
fair  terms.  These  arguments  may  be  summar- 
ized as  follows: 

I.  Because  as  indirect  employers  the  Con- 
suming Class  are  bound  to  maintain  just  con- 
ditions for  those  whom  they  indirectly  employ. 

II.  Because  as  buyers  the  Consuming  Class 
are  first  bound  to  pay  the  full  value  of  the  arti- 
cle, which  must  include  sufficient  to  give  the 
persons  employed  in  its  manufacture  and  dis- 
tribution a  living  wage,  etc.;  and  secondly,  be- 
cause the  Consimiing  Class  are  bound  not  to 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMtNG  CLASS 

buy  an  article  to  which  the  seller  has  not  a  just 
title,  the  seller  of  an  article  made  under  unjust 
conditions  not  having  a  just  title  since  there  is 
work  in  the  object  for  which  he  has  not  paid. 

III.  Because  the  Consuming  Class  would 
co-operate  in  an  injustice  in  three  ways:  (A) 
by  receiving  the  goods  made  under  unjust  con- 
ditions; (B)  by  furnishing  the  means  for  com- 
mitting the  injustice;  (C)  by  urging  such  pro- 
duction by  this  practical  financial  support. 

IV.  Because  the  Consuming  Class  are  bound 
to  seek  the  social  good,  and  that  demands  the 
payment  of  fair  wages. 


n 

So  far  we  have  considered  only  the  argu- 
ments for  an  obligation  of  justice  on  the  part 
of  the  Consuming  Class.  But  may  there  not 
also  be  a  duty  of  charity? 

Certain  general  considerations  relating  to 
this  second  of  the  two  greatest  commandments, 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  must 
be  referred  to  before  answering  that  question. 

The  precept  of  charity  requires  us  to  love  our 
neighbor  as  ourselves.  And  by  the  term  neigh- 
bor we  mean  everyone.     No  religion,  "race. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude"  re- 
moves a  man  from  the  category  of  our  neigh- 
bor. A  Christian's  love  must  be  all  embracing. 
T.  H.  Green  has  well  said  that  progress  in  civ- 
ilization has  been  an  enlargement  of  the  mean- 
ing of  neighbor  and  neighborliness.  The  mean- 
ing of  these  terms,  once  confined  to  one's  rela- 
tives, then  extended  to  one's  city,  tribe,  nation, 
has  now  widened  out  until  it  embraces  the 
world. 

But  while  we  must  look  upon  everyone  as 
our  neighbor,  and  love  him  as  ourselves,  this 
does  not  mean  that  we  must  love  each  one  in  the 
same  degree.  We  must  love  him  as  ourselves, 
but  not  necessarily  as  much  as  ourselves.  We 
must  have  a  universal  internal  love  by  which  we 
wish  our  neighbor  well  in  his  spiritual,  cor- 
poral, and  material  goods  and  succor  him  in 
necessity. 

Yet  the  amount  of  good  we  wish  him,  and 
the  strength  of  the  obligation  to  effect  it,  vary 
both  with  the  special  relationship  existing  be- 
tween us  and  our  mutual  conditions.  By  mu- 
tual conditions,  is  meant  his  state  of  indigency 
and  ours  of  prosperity.  Almost  innumerable 
grades  of  necessity  may  be  distinguished,  but 
for  present  purposes  four  will  be  sufficient: 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

(1)  extreme  necessity,  in  which  a  person  is  in 
danger  of  death,  or  will  be  very  shortly;  (2) 
quasi-extreme  necessity,  in  which  one  is  in  dan- 
ger of  f  aUing  into  extreme  necessity  or  a  grave 
evil,  either  perpetual  or  lasting  for  a  long  time ; 
(3)  grave  necessity,  where  one  suffers  a  serious 
evil,  but  not  for  so  long  a  period,  or  not  so 
great;  (4)  common  necessity,  when  one  experi- 
ences some  inconvenience,  but  not  grievous  in- 
convenience. 

The  obligation  varies,  too,  with  the  condi- 
tions existing  on  our  part.  For  if  the  duty  of 
succoring  our  neighbor  from  our  own  goods  is 
to  bind,  we  must  be  in  possession  of  superfluous 
goods.  Otherwise  our  own  need  would  have  a 
prior  claim.  Material  possessions  may  be 
superfluous  to  life,  that  is,  just  more  than 
enough  to  keep  body  and  soul  together;  super- 
fluous to  our  state  in  life,  or  goods  without 
which  we  should  have  to  sink  to  a  lower  social 
plane;  or  superfluous  to  the  decency  of  our 
state,  those  over  and  above  what  are  required 
even  for  the  proper  support  of  our  family  in 
accordance  with  the  usual  custom  of  those  in 
the  same  position,  the  education  and  starting 
of  our  children  in  life,  the  giving  of  charity, 
gifts,  entertainment  of  guests,  etc.    This  last 

C333 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

class  of  goods  may  be  called  absolutely  super- 
fluous. 

Now,  it  would  not  seem  rigoristic  (especially 
in  these  days  when  the  right  to  any  private 
property  is  seriously  questioned)  to  say,  that 
a  person  in  extreme  or  quasi-extreme  necessity 
is  to  be  succored  from  goods  that  are  necessary 
to  the  decent  support  of  our  station  in  life.  One 
merely  in  grave  or  common  necessity  need  be 
helped  only  out  of  absolutely  superfluous 
goods.  This  would  certainly  be  the  minimimi 
that  any  Christian  would  require. 

But  this  obligation  also  varies  directly  ac- 
cording to  the  closeness  of  our  relationship  with 
the  person  in  want.  A  connection  of  blood, 
whether  direct  as  between  father  and  son,  or 
collateral  as  between  uncle  and  nephew,  evi- 
dently produces  stronger  reciprocal  obligations 
of  charity  than  simple  kinship  through  Adam. 
So,  too,  there  is  a  stronger  bond  between  those 
who  have  assumed  artificial  relationships,  such 
as  a  pastor  to  his  people,  or  those  of  the  same 
religious  faith,  or  those  in  the  same  social  class, 
or  those  who  have  acquired,  whether  voluntar- 
ily or  not,  associational  or  economic  ties.  A 
captain,  for  example,  has  greater  obligations  of 
charity  towards  a  man  in  his  own  company  than 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

towards  one  in  another  company,  towards  one 
in  his  regiment  than  towards  one  in  another 
regiment,  and  so  on. 

Certainly  not  least  strong  among  these  arti- 
ficial relationships  of  society  is  that  of  employer 
and  employee.  There  was  a  time  in  social  or- 
ganization, when  the  permanent  subjection  of 
Gurth  to  Cedric  brought  out  more  clearly  the 
mutual  obligations.  The  ties  of  the  relation- 
ship seemed  stronger  because  more  lasting. 
Fortunately  or  unfortunately,  the  right  of  free 
contract  has  abolished  this  permanency.  Men 
wander  from  one  employer  to  another,  from 
one  city  to  another,  from  one  country  to  an- 
other. But  no  transitoriness  of  employment, 
no  mobility  of  labor,  should  obscure  the  fact 
that  while  the  relationship  of  employer  and  em- 
ployee lasts,  there  also  exist  special  and 
stronger  obligations  of  charity  between  the  two. 

Not  as  strong,  probably,  as  between  master 
and  serf,  yet  nevertheless  too  strong  to  be  en- 
tirely fulfilled  by  the  simple  payment  of  the 
current  wage.  As  Carlyle  says,  "Never  on  this 
Earth  was  the  relation  of  man  to  man  long 
carried  on  by  Cash-payment  alone.  .  .  .  Cash- 
payment  never  was,  or  could  except  for  a  few 
years  be,  the  union-bond  of  man  to  man.    Cash 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

never  yet  paid  one  man  fully  his  deserts  to  an- 
other :  nor  could  it  nor  can  it,  now  or  henceforth 
to  the  end  of  the  world.  ...  In  brief,  we  shall 
have  to  dismiss  the  Cash- Gospel  rigorously  into 
its  own  place:  we  shall  have  to  know,  on  the 
threshold,  that  either  there  is  some  infinitely 
deeper  Gospel,  subsidiary,  explanatory,  and 
daily  and  hourly  corrective  to  the  Cash  one :  or 
else  that  the  Cash  one  itself  and  all  others  are 
fast  travelling."  ^^ 

That  infinitely  deeper  Gospel  is  the  teaching 
of  Christian  charity.  This  tells  us  that  there  is 
another  bond  between  employer  and  employee 
than  a  mere  "cash-nexus."  The  needy  em- 
ployee has  a  claim  upon  his  employer  in  prefer- 
ence to  others,  and  the  employer  must  dis- 
charge it  before  dispensing  charity  to  those  in 
no  greater  necessity  who  stand  in  no  such  rela- 
tion to  him.  Charity  begins  at  home,  and  the 
employee  is  closer  home  than  one  related  sim- 
ply by  the  tie  of  a  common  nature. 

Of  course,  the  relation  between  the  direct 
employer  and  his  workmen  is  more  obvious  than 
that  between  the  Consuming  Class  (which  we 
have  called  the  indirect  employer)  and  these 
same  men.  But  the  relation  of  the  latter  is  none 
the  less  real  and  important  for  being  obscure. 

81  "Past  and  Present,"  Bk.  IH,  Ch.  X. 


OBLIGATIONS  OF  THE  CONSUMING  CLASS 

Ordinarily  it  will  probably  be  less  close  than 
that  of  the  direct  employer,  but  circumstances 
are  conceivable  in  which  the  situation  would  be 
reversed. 

And  certainly  it  would  seem  that  the  benefit 
which  the  laboring  class  confers  upon  the  Con- 
suming Class  is  such  that  there  is  some  special 
claim  arising  upon  their  charity.  Not  labor  in 
itself  but  consumption  is  the  object  of  work,  and 
this  terminus  of  all  activity,  the  Consuming 
Class,  would  seem  to  be  bound  both  in  justice 
and  charity  to  see  that  their  own  satisfaction  is 
not  attained  at  the  cost  of  the  comfort  and  hap- 
piness of  those  who  minister  to  it. 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that  if  the  direct  em- 
ployers fail  to  fulfill  their  duties  towards  their 
employees,  that  the  Consuming  Class,  as  being 
a  beneficiary  of  the  work  done,  are  bound  to  as- 
sume these  duties.  As  yet,  however,  the  obli- 
gation is  abstract  as  being  fixed  upon  a  class 
and  not  some  particular  individual  about  to 
purchase  an  article;  and  it  is  hypothetical  as 
simply  assuming  that  employers  neglect  their 
duties. 

The  further  question  now  presents  itself :  Do 
employers  actually  neglect  their  duties,  and 
what  can  and  should  the  Consumer  do? 


CHAPTER  THREE 

WHAT   IS  A   JUST   EMPLOYER? 

THE  terms  *'fair  wages,"  "reasonable  com- 
fort," "living  wage"  have  often  been  used 
in  the  previous  discussion.  No  attempt  was 
made  to  make  them  more  definite  because  it  was 
not  necessary  at  the  time.  Employers  were 
simply  assumed  to  violate  the  standard  repre- 
sented by  these  expressions.  But  if  we  are  go- 
ing to  decide  de  facto  that  employers  are  actu- 
ally neglecting  their  duties,  we  must  manifestly 
have  some  norm  by  which  to  judge  them. 

What  is  this  standard? 

At  first  sight,  this  may  seem  easy  to  define. 
But  its  apparent  ease  is  an  illusion.  Even  the 
simplest  and  least  questionable  standard,  that 
of  bare  subsistence  ( and  to  simplify  it  still  fur- 
ther, restrict  the  consideration  entirely  to  the 
question  of  food),  is  extremely  elusive.  Of 
course  a  man  needs  some  clothing,  a  certain 
amount  of  fresh  air,  and  a  shelter  from  the  wea- 
ther.   But  we  shall  have  a  sufficiently  compli- 


WHAT  IS  A  JUST  EMPLOYER? 

cated  problem  without  introducing  these  fac- 
tors. 

How  much  food,  then,  does  a  man  need  to 
repair  the  daily  waste  and  keep  him  in  good 
physical  condition?  This  depends  to  some  ex- 
tent upon  the  character  of  the  work  he  does. 
A  stevedore  needs  more  food  than  a  clerk.  It 
will  depend,  too,  upon  the  climate.  Those  in 
northern  latitudes  require  more  food,  and 
usually  of  a  more  expensive  kind,  than  those 
living  in  the  tropics,  and  they  ought  to  have 
more  in  winter  than  in  summer.  Again,  racial 
characteristics  must  be  taken  into  account.  A 
Chinese  coolie  may  get  fat  on  fish  and  rice,  or 
an  Italian  may  do  well  on  cheese  and  macaroni, 
while  an  Anglo-Saxon  would  starve  on  such  a 
diet. 

In  addition  to  all  these  points,  there  is  an 
individuality  about  the  digestive  organs  that 
must  be  weighed.  With  our  exact  chemical 
science  it  looks  simple  enough  to  calculate  how 
much  muscle  and  blood  and  nervous  force  are 
lost  in  doing  a  certain  amount  of  work,  and 
just  how  much  food  would  be  required  in  a 
given  time  to  make  good  that  loss.  This  would 
be  easy  if  we  could  buy  muscle  and  nervous 
force  done  up  in  neat  packages  and  simply  ap- 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

ply  them  where  needed  just  as  we  apply  a  coat 
of  paint  to  a  weather-beaten  house.  But,  un- 
fortunately, we  cannot  do  this.  The  brawn 
and  nerve  must  be  bought  in  entirely  different 
forms,  broken  up  by  certain  interior  organs, 
and  gradually  sent  by  a  long  and  complicated 
assimilating  process  to  the  point  requiring 
them.  And  what  becomes  of  the  subsistence 
standard  if  the  organs  of  some  people  refuse 
to  assimilate  what  those  of  others  heartily  rel- 
ish? or  if  at  different  periods,  and  for  no  appar- 
ent reason,  the  same  man  can  get  no  strength 
or  satisfaction  from  what  he  formerly  craved? 

But  if  we  cannot  tell  what  mere  subsistence 
requires  are  we  not  getting  even  vaguer  when 
we  add  an  indefinite  "more"  to  it?  When  peo- 
ple talk  of  "frugal  comfort,"  "decent  liveli- 
hood," "living  wage,"  etc.,  what  do  they  mean? 
Do  these  terms  mean  to-day  just  what  they  did 
fifty  years  ago  or  will  mean  half  a  century 
hence  ? 

A  little  reflection  will  show  us  that  they  do 
not.  They  are  largely  relative.  When  the  gen- 
try scorned  to  read  and  write,  farm  hands  could 
hardly  consider  it  an  injustice  not  to  have  in- 
struction in  the  three  Rs;  and  when  everybody 
went  barefoot,  it  would  have  been  foolish  to  riot 


WHAT  IS  A  JUST  EMPLOYER? 

for  shoes.  As  means  of  production  are  per- 
fected, as  we  get  away  from  the  danger  of 
starvation,  always  threatening  primitive  no- 
madic peoples,  the  standard  of  living  of  the 
more  fortunate  rises,  as  does  that  standard 
which  they  are  willing  to  allow  the  lower  classes, 
and  which  the  lower  classes  demand. 

As  a  consequence,  what  is  looked  upon  in  one 
age  as  just  and  generous,  may  in  another  be 
considered  thoroughly  unfair.  Concrete  stan- 
dards of  justice  vary  with  the  time  and  are  soon 
superseded  by  others.  This  is  an  important 
fact,  and  it  must  be  mastered  before  one  can 
use  the  current  standard  with  honesty  or  intel- 
ligence. The  principle  of  justice  upon  which 
the  changing  concrete  standard  is  based,  the 
moral  right  of  each  individual  as  a  human  be- 
ing to  the  fullest  development  of  all  his  facul- 
ties consistent  with  such  rights  in  others,  is 
doubtless  unchanging.  But  it  is  conditioned 
by  the  stage  of  production  that  society  has 
reached,  upon  how  much  there  is  to  go  round ; 
and  the  wage  necessary  to  secure  this  standard 
is  conditioned  by  governmental  supplement 
such  as  free  education,  insurance,  etc.  It  would 
seem  impossible,  therefore,  to  determine  the  ex- 
act wage  that  a  particular  individual  is  entitled 

1:413 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

to  until  we  can  determine  the  total  net  product 
and  this  individual's  contribution  to  it  as  com- 
pared with  other  individuals.  We  are  not  aware 
that  this  has  been  done. 

The  attempt  has  been  made,  however,  to 
establish  both  the  absolute  minimum  standard 
and  this  relative  standard.  In  the  sixteenth 
volume  of  the  report  of  the  United  States  Bu- 
reau of  Labor  on  "Woman  and  Child  Wage- 
Earners  in  the  United  States,"  the  former  is 
fixed  at  $400.00.  But  have  we  an  absolute 
minimum  below  which  wages  could  not  fall 
without  endangering  existence  when  a  girl  of 
ten  and  a  boy  of  six  are  allowed  more  money 
for  clothing  than  their  mother? 

Upon  the  relative  living  wage,  whole  vol- 
umes have  been  written.  But  they  would  seem 
either  to  deal  with  the  concrete  expression  of 
the  standard  of  a  particular  class,  or,  if  they  do 
attempt  to  establish  the  right  of  individuals 
here  and  now  to  a  particular  remuneration  in 
money,  they  do  not  quite  prove  their  conten- 
tion. 

But  there  are  people  who  believe  that  the 
right  of  the  laborer  to  a  specific  wage  (and 
hence  the  employer's  obligation  of  paying  it) 
can  be  demonstrated.     Dr.  John  A.  Ryan, 

1:423 


WHAT  IS  A  JUST  EMPLOYER? 

whose  treatise  on  "The  Living  Wage"  has  at- 
tracted marked  attention,  has  made  such  a  claim 
for  an  estimate  of  $600.00  as  a  family  living 
wage  in  cities  of  five  hundred  thousand  or  over 
in  the  United  States/ 

This  was  in  1906  and  the  cost  of  living  has 
advanced  considerably  since  then.  Dr.  Ryan 
would  probably,  therefore,  not  consider  too 
high  the  estimate  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  (1.  c.) 
of  $600.00  for  cotton  mill  operatives  in  the 
South.  Under  this  standard,  the  father  sup- 
ports the  family,  the  mother  stays  at  home  look- 
ing after  the  house,  and  the  children  go  to 
school.    It  includes  insurance. 

Now  for  the  sake  of  argument  let  us  assume 
that  laborers  have  a  strict  right  in  justice  to  a 
standard  represented  by  $600.00  a  year  in  a 
Southern  mill  town.  I  must  reluctantly  admit 
that  $600.00  cannot  be  proved  conclusively  to 
be  the  sum  to  which  all  laborers  have  a  right. 

1  others  have  approximated  this  estimate,  though  possibly 
without  giving  it  exactly  the  same  ethical  implications  as  Dr. 
Ryan.  Thus  Chapin,  "Standard  of  Living  in  New  York  City," 
N.  Y.,  p.  245,  claims  $800.00  as  the  minimum  for  New  York 
City.  Miss  Butler,  "Women  and  the  Trades,"  N.  Y.,  p.  346, 
says  $7.00  a  week  for  a  single  woman  in  Pittsburgh.  The 
United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  in  the  third  volume  of  its  re- 
port on  "Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in  the  United 
States,"  p.  560,  declares  for  $2.00  a  week  per  capita. 

n483 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

But  for  the  time  being  we  shall  take  it  for 
granted,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  this  as- 
sumption judge  the  justice  or  injustice  of  in- 
dustrial conditions. 

I  have  said  that  I  do  not  think  that  this  obli- 
gation can  be  proved  conclusively,  that  is,  as 
conclusively  as  a  proposition  in  geometry.  But 
I  do  think  that  it  is  capable  of  the  same  proof 
that  we  have  for  many  other  moral  truths 
that  pass  unquestioned.  We  must  beware  of 
applying  to  new  propositions  that  corrosive 
logic  which,  if  impartially  exercised  on  old  and 
new  alike,  would  destroy  the  very  basis  of  mo- 
rality. 

This  principle,  that  moral  truths  cannot  be 
absolutely  demonstrated,  is  generally  admitted 
and  many  concrete  examples  could  be  given 
from  prominent  ethicists:  thus  De  Lugo  in 
speaking  of  so  fundamental  a  question  as  the 
unlawfulness  of  suicide,  does  not  hesitate  to 
say:  "The  whole  difficulty  consists  in  assigning 
a  reason  for  this  truth:  for  though  its  [sui- 
cide's] turpitude  is  immediately  apparent,  it  is 
not  easy  to  find  the  foundation  of  this  judg- 
ment: whence  {a  thing  that  happens  in  many 
other  questions)  the  conclusion  is  more  certain 

1:443 


WHAT  IS  A  JUST  EMPLOYER? 

than  the  reason  adduced  by  various  authors  for 
its  proof."  ^ 

Again,  Ballerini,  in  treating  of  the  unlaw- 
fuhiess  of  one  of  the  sins  mentioned  by  St.  Paul 
in  the  sixth  chapter  of  his  first  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  remarks  that  "it  is  most  difficult 
to  assign  a  reason  for  this."  Then,  after  re- 
jecting all  the  reasons  usually  brought  for- 
ward, he  adds:  "It  must  be  admitted  that  there 
are  some  practical  truths  necessary  for  the 
right  association  of  men  with  each  other,  which 
men  feel  and  perceive  by  a  sort  of  rational  in- 
stinct, whose  reason,  nevertheless  (at  least  a 
demonstrative  one),  when  these  same  men  seek 
it  analytically,  they  find  it  hard  to  discover.  It 
would  seem  that  nature,  or  the  Author  of  our 
nature,  wished  to  supply  the  defect  of  the  ex- 
ercise of  reason  by  an  instinct  or  rational  sense 
of  this  kind:  .  .  .  Among  the  truths  of  this 
nature,  the  one  of  which  we  treat  happens  to  be 
found."  ^ 

If  unquestioned  authorities  like  Ballerini 
and  De  Lugo  admit  their  inability  to  prove 
such  fundamental  and  important  obligations 
(it  will  be  noted  that  De  Lugo  says  there  are 

2  See  Appendix,  9.  3  See  Appendix,  10. 

1:45] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

many  such)  as  those  of  refraining  from  the 
above  mentioned  sins,  it  need  not  sm-prise  us  to 
find  that  the  obhgations  of  Consumers  cannot 
be  proved  apodictically.  It  would  be  foolish, 
therefore,  to  claim  absolutely  to  demonstrate 
this  obhgation.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  ad- 
duce the  same  proofs  that  Aquinas,  Suarez,  and 
other  master  minds  have  used  to  fix  other  du- 
ties, and  show  that  they  have  equal  force  in  the 
present  discussion.  It  is  simply  the  familiar 
argument  a  pari^  and  the  claim  would  seem  rea- 
sonable, that  any  objectors  meeting  these  argu- 
ments on  purely  rational  grounds,  must  show 
that  they  do  not  equally  apply  to  this  obliga- 
tion, or  else  deny  their  force  as  proof  for  the 
other  duties. 


[463 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

THEOEY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

MODERN  industrial  conditions  may  be 
considered  either  a  priori  or  a  posteriori, 
either  theoretically  or  de  facto.  We  may  ex- 
amine the  principles  of  economic  organization, 
and  conclude  that  they  will  or  will  not  lead  to 
low  wages ;  or  we  can  go  to  the  facts  themselves, 
and  decide  from  an  examination  of  actual  con- 
ditions whether  or  not  wages  are  low,  etc.,  al- 
ways remembering  the  standard  we  have 
adopted. 

Beginning  with  the  first  method,  we  may, 
speaking  roughly  and  with  sufficient  allowance 
for  monopolies,  say  that  we  live  under  a  com- 
petitive system.  Men  compete  with  others  for 
their  share  in  the  product  of  industry.  Goods 
are  not  put  in  one  general  fund  and  distributed 
according  to  each  one's  needs.  Nor  are  they 
awarded  to  suit  the  whim  of  some  ruler.  Un- 
doubtedly our  present  industrial  organization 
is  individualistic  rather  than  socialistic,  and  its 
chief  characteristic  is  probably  a  rivalry  be- 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

tween  its  various  members.  Some  assume  that 
competition  is  universal  and  unrestrained. 
Then  they  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  present 
system  from  what  would  happen  if  such  com- 
petition prevailed.  Others  forget  that  compe- 
tition is  as  universal  as  it  really  is,  and  that  it 
exists  not  only  between  laborer  and  laborer  to 
get  the  job,  but  between  capitalist  and  capital- 
ist to  secure  the  laborer. 

To  subscribe  to  either  of  these  errors  will  viti- 
ate any  conclusions  as  to  social  policy.  For  if 
unrestrained  competition  have  certain  evil  ten- 
dencies, we  cannot  therefore  assume  that  the 
present  restricted  form  will  have  such  results. 
And  the  fact  that  competition  exists  between 
capitalists  as  well  as  between  laborers  has  very 
wide-reaching  implications.  It  means  no  less 
than  that  competition  may  raise  wages  as  well 
as  lower  them. 

The  average  person  is  apt  to  look  upon  an 
object  as  drawn  only  to  the  earth  by  gravita- 
tion. He  forgets  that  the  same  force  is  also 
pulling  at  it  in  an  opposite  direction.  And  in 
the  same  way  the  average  person  is  hkely  to 
forget  that  competition  is  continually  pulling 
wages  both  up  and  down.  If  we  imagine  some 
object  suspended  between  the  earth  and  the 

[48] 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

moon,  and  being  constantly  drawn  towards 
each  according  to  some  power  inherent  in  them 
which  varies  from  time  to  time  so  that  the  ob- 
ject now  approaches  one  and  now  the  other, 
we  shall  have  a  rough  illustration  of  how  com- 
petition affects  wages. 

We  can  look  upon  the  amount  of  wages  as 
the  object  of  attraction  between  competition  on 
the  part  of  laborers  and  competition  on  the 
part  of  capitalists.  According  as  competition 
among  capitalists  is  keen  as  compared  with  that 
among  laborers,  wages  will  rise,  and  vice  versa ; 
just  as  when,  in  our  illustration,  gravity  was 
strong  in  the  moon,  the  object  rose  towards  it, 
and  when  it  was  stronger  in  the  earth  the  ob- 
ject feU  towards  that  body.  But  in  both  cases 
the  result  is  due  to  the  same  force,  though  act- 
ing from  different  points.  It  would  be  an  error, 
therefore,  to  attribute  all  the  evils  of  our  pres- 
ent system  to  competition,  and  all  the  good  to 
some  other  agency.  Competition  has  good  re- 
sults as  well  as  bad,  and  this  two-fold  influence 
must  always  be  remembered. 

Doubtless  absolutely  unrestrained  competi- 
tion between  laborers  with  no  corresponding 
rivalry  between  capitalists  would  depress 
wages.  But  such  competition  does  not  exist. 
1:493 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

Competition  is  not  absolutely  unrestricted.  It 
is  limited  by  organization  among  the  workmen, 
by  legislation,  by  natural  ability,  and  in  vari- 
ous other  ways.  As  a  result,  the  effects  are  lim- 
ited in  various  ways.  If  a  bricklayers'  union 
is  strong  enough  practically  to  eliminate  com- 
petition between  this  class  of  laborers  while 
capitaHsts  compete  with  each  other  to  obtain 
their  services,  then  the  working  out  of  compe- 
tition has  been  modified  in  such  a  way  as  to 
have  an  upward  effect  upon  wages. 

Competition,  then,  is  not  necessarily  bad.  In 
many  cases,  competition  is  not  only  the  life  of 
trade,  but  the  builder  of  character  as  well.  As 
a  whole,  those  who  have  to  earn  their  living 
amid  keen  business  rivalry  are  more  energetic, 
quickwitted  and  resourceful  than  those  govern- 
ment employees  who  live  in  a  somewhat  listless, 
non-competitive  atmosphere.  And  the  superi- 
ority of  Western  to  Eastern  civilization  and 
character  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  there  com- 
petition has  been  too  much  limited  by  caste  sys- 
tems, repressive  legislation,  and  unchanging 
custom. 

Under  the  restricted  form  of  competition  ex- 
isting  to-day,    many    employers    pay   living 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

wages  and  treat  their  employees  fairly  in  every 
way.  Indeed,  the  entrepreneur  sometimes  finds 
it  to  his  advantage  to  give  his  employees  even 
more  than  strict  justice  would  demand.  When 
competition  for  workmen  is  keen  between  em- 
ployers, certain  inducements  may  be  necessary 
to  prevent  experienced  men  leaving  and  to 
avoid  the  consequent  loss  of  breaking  in  new 
laborers. 

At  any  rate  we  find  that  many  employers  do 
all  that  can  reasonably  be  expected.  Forinstance, 
in  contrast  with  the  conditions  of  the  garment 
trade  prevailing  in  many  places,  the  Pittsburgh 
Survey  found  two  factories  in  that  city  to 
be  run  on  excellent  lines.  They  were  well- 
lighted  by  large  windows,  the  ventilation  was 
good,  the  walls  newly  whitewashed,  and  the 
floors  swept  and  scrubbed.  In  one,  indeed,  the 
upper  windows  were  opened  at  intervals,  and 
the  work-rooms  had  windows  on  three  sides. 
(Butler,  1.  c,  p.  109.)  Nine  others  were  good 
because  they  were  swept  daily  and  exhibited  a 
manifest  standard  as  to  a  work-room  (1.  c, 
p.  107) .  One  firm,  too,  was  found  to  allow  its 
employees  to  share  in  its  progress.  Thus  when 
new  buttonhole  machines  were  introduced  a  few 

1:513 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

years  ago  the  girls  could  turn  out  a  third  more 
work  than  formerly,  but  they  were  paid  at  the 
same  piece-rate  (L  c,  pp.  119-120). 

The  variation  between  individual  stores  as 
regards  wages  will  be  shown  from  the  follow- 
ing table,  adapted  from  page  121  of  the  first 
volume  of  the  Pittsburgh  Survey: 


Article 

No.  of 
operators 

Weekly 

wages 

Average 

manufactured 

Min. 

Max. 

Shirts 

15 

$  6 

$12 

$  7 

Shirts 

1 

10 

10 

Shirts 

S 

8 

10 

8 

Shirts 

24 

6 

8 

8 

Shirts  and 

Overalls 

39 

4 

12 

8 

Overalls 

26 

6 

10 

8 

Overalls 

75 

6 

10.5 

7 

Shirts 

5 

7 

11 

Shirts 

18 

7 

14 

10 

Shirts 

51 

5 

15 

8 

Shirts 

7 

6.5 

12 

8 

Pants 

114 

4 

14 

9 

Pants 

37 

3 

12 

8 

Pants 

6 

3 

9 

7 

Pants 

284 

4 

9 

7 

Pants 

10 

4 

9 

8 

Such  differences  are  reproduced  in  all  the  needle 
trades/ 

Similar  distinctions  are  also  found  in  laun- 

1  L.  c,  pp.  121,  122,  134,  152;  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Men's  Ready- 
Made  Clothing,"  p.  303. 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

dries.  A  very  few  have  properly  constructed 
plants,  with  wash-rooms  on  the  upper  floors 
and  some  arrangement  for  carrying  off  the  in- 
evitable steam  (Butler,  1.  c,  p.  170),  In  one, 
however,  there  are  "exhaust  pipes  over  the 
mangles,  and  fans  in  the  walls,  and  there  are 
windows  along  the  side.  The  feeders  are  seated 
while  handling  small  work,  and  the  folders  have 
comfortable  benches"  (p.  174).  Wages,  too, 
are  considerably  higher  here  than  in  other  laun- 
dries. Four  laundries  in  Pittsburgh  have 
adopted  an  improved  cuff-ironing  machine 
which  saves  the  operator  from  the  extreme  phy- 
sical exertion  of  the  old  style  (p.  182).  A 
North  Side  laundry  has  set  aside  a  bright  sunny 
section  of  the  building  "for  a  lunch-room;  there 
are  attractive  dishes,  tables  covered  with  white 
cloths,  comfortable  chairs.  The  noon  interval 
is  an  hour  and  a  half"  (p.  312) . 

Turning  to  mercantile  houses  we  also  find  a 
great  contrast.  Some  provide  only  half  a  dozen 
chairs  for  five  hundred  girls,  while  others  do 
not  allow  chairs  to  be  used  at  all.^  Many 
stores  have  a  working  week  at  Christmas 
of  from  seventy-two  to  eighty-four  hours  with- 

2  Butler,  p.  301;  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Women  Wage-Earners  in 
Stores  and  Factories,"  pp.  109,  178. 

CSS] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

out  extra  pay  (Butler,  1.  c,  p.  303).  "Some 
employers  are  generally  reputed  among  sales- 
girls to  assume  that  their  women  employees  se- 
cure financial  backing  from  outside  relation- 
ships, and  knowingly  pay  wages  that  are  sup- 
plementary rather  than  wages  large  enough  to 
cover  the  cost  of  a  girl's  support."  (L.  c,  p. 
306.)  Indeed,  some  employers  frankly  admit 
this  and  advertise  for  sales- women,  "preferably 
those  living  at  home."^ 

Compare  with  these  stores  the  one  that  "ex- 
emplifies a  higher  standard  at  each  point  under 
discussion ;  in  the  comprehensiveness  of  its  ven- 
tilating system;  in  its  observance  of  the  spirit 
of  the  law  in  providing  an  average  of  four  seats 
to  a  counter  for  its  employees ;  in  the  fact  that 
it  has  no  Christmas  overtime ;  .  .  .  and  finally 
in  its  wage  standard.  .  .  .  Seven  hundred  girls 
are  paid  $7.00 ;  .  .  .  one  hundred  girls  are  paid 
$8.00  to  $10.00,  and  sometimes  $15.00  in  the 
case  of  a  head  of  stock."   (Butler,  1.  c,  p.  304.) 

Some  glass  factories  furnish  shutters  over  the 
leer-mouths  to  protect  employees  from  heat;* 
prevent  radiation  from  the  melting  tanks  by 

3U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  1.  c,  p.  22;  Report  Minneapolis  Vice  Com" 
mission,  1911,  p.  127. 
*U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Glass  Industry,"  p.  54. 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

various  devices  (1.  c,  p.  79) ;  provide  blue  glass 
screens  at  the  glory  holes  (ib.) ;  artificially  cool 
the  shops  in  summer  (1.  c,  p.  80) ;  work  shorter 
hours  (p.  98)  ;  eliminate  night-work  (p.  104) ; 
provide  hoods  and  exhausts  for  the  etching 
baths  (p.  322)  and  the  sand  blasts  (p.  317). 
In  one  woolen  factory  the  milligrams  of  dust  in 
a  cubic  centimeter  of  air  were  reduced  from 
twenty  to  seven  by  the  installation  of  an  ex- 
hauster.^ 

The  fact,  too,  that  organizations  such  as 
trade  unions  and  consumers'  leagues  can  allow 
the  use  of  their  labels  to  certify  that  an  article 
has  been  made  under  fair  conditions,  is  a  strik- 
ing confirmation  of  the  fact  that  some  manu- 
facturers do  maintain  proper  factories  and 
treat  their  employees  justly. 

Nevertheless,  competition  has  a  black  as  well 
as  a  silver  lining.  It  is  self-evident  that  for 
any  length  of  time  laborers  cannot  get  more 
than  the  total  product  of  their  work  coupled 
with  the  necessary  capital.  Nor  wiU  it  be  de- 
nied that  capitalists  will  always  be  in  a  position 
to  appropriate  a  part  of  this  joint  product,  how 
much  depending  very  largely  upon  the  relative 
supply  of  capital  and  labor  and  the  keenness  of 

5U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  **  Industrial  Hygiene,"  1908,  p.  79. 
1:553 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

competition  between  them.  The  share  that  is 
left  and  which  goes  to  the  laborers  is  not  di- 
vided equally.  It  is  distributed  competitively. 
Those  who  are  economically  strongest  seize 
what  they  can,  and  the  weaklings  must  be  con- 
tent with  the  remainder.  Frequently  this  is  not 
sufficient  to  afford  them  the  standard  we  are 
considering,  but  they  are  helpless  to  remedy 
matters. 

And  there  are  some  things  that  tend  to  keep 
this  share  at  a  minimum.  Industrial  organiza- 
tion is  not  simply  a  case  of  competition  between 
capital  and  labor,  but  capitahsts  are  competing 
with  capitalists  as  well  as  with  laborers,  and 
laborers  with  each  other  as  well  as  with  capital- 
ists. The  result  is  that  the  weakest  parties  to 
this  fray  get  hit  hardest,  and  their  only  hope 
would  seem  to  be  the  addition  of  some  other 
check  to  competition  that  will  prevent  the  pres- 
ent distressful  consequences.  This  is  not  to 
say,  as  Socialists  argue,  that  competition  is  to 
be  abolished  entirely,  for  we  have  seen  that  it 
may  really  have  excellent  effects  for  the  work- 
man. Rather  it  is  to  be  harnessed  and  guided 
into  beneficent  channels,  as  a  miller  directs  a 
stream  to  turn  a  wheel.  He  does  not  destroy 
the  stream  but  makes  it  do  his  will. 

1562 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

An  analysis  of  industrial  society  will  show, 
I  think,  that  despite  the  good  work  the  stream 
of  competition  is  doing,  there  is  a  little  eddy 
undermining  the  bank  and  working  havoc  in 
some  places.  The  description  of  one  phase  of 
competition,  even  though  it  be  isolated  from 
the  rest,  will  probably  give  a  correct  enough 
idea  of  how  this  force  while  working  out  to  the 
advantage  of  some,  is  resulting  in  harm  to  oth- 
ers. The  considerations  that  must  be  omitted 
in  a  short  sketch  do  not  change  the  matter 
essentially.  They  limit  the  hardship  wrought, 
but  they  do  not  prevent  a  considerable  number 
of  workmen  from  being  mercilessly  ground 
down. 

Modern  industry,  then,  is  organized  for  sale, 
not  use.  Business  men  care  nothing  about  what 
they  manufacture  so  long  as  they  can  find  a 
profitable  sale  for  the  article.  The  typical  em- 
ployer makes  shoes  not  because  he  hkes  to,  as 
an  artist  may  paint  a  picture.  He  does  it  be- 
cause he  thinks  a  sufficient  number  of  purchas- 
ers will  want  this  commodity  at  a  price  paying 
him  for  his  trouble. 

But  to  get  these  purchasers  he  must  (unless  he 
have  some  sort  of  monopoly)  offer  his  product 
at  a  price  no  higher  than  other  manufacturers 

1571 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

are  willing  to  take  for  the  same  article.  If  he 
deviate  only  a  few  cents,  the  expert  buyers  of 
retail  stores  will  know  it  and  go  elsewhere. 
There  is  a  constant  demand  for  cheapness,  a 
universal  eagerness  to  "get  your  money's 
worth";  and  factories  and  retail  firms  must 
meet  it,  or  see  their  trade  taken  away  by  com- 
petitors. The  intense  desire  of  individual  buy- 
ers for  minute  savings  of  a  cent  here  or  a  frac- 
tion of  a  cent  there,  becomes,  in  the  aggregate, 
an  irresistible  Demand  with  a  capital  D,  "a 
blood-power  stronger  than  steam,"  compelling 
the  retailer  (who  in  his  turn  reacts  upon  the 
manufacturer)  to  sell  cheap.  "The  phenomena 
of  sweating  are  a  standing  warning  against  the 
dangers  that  are  inherent  in  unregulated  com- 
petition. .  .  .  The  underlying  cause  of  the 
evil,"  affirms  a  noted  English  economist,  "is 
certainly  to  be  found  in  the  indiscriminate  pref- 
erence of  the  public  for  that  which  is  low- 
priced."^ 

The  seller,  then,  must  meet  the  Consumer's 
demands ;  and  since  these  are  for  cheapness,  he 
must  sell  cheap.  But  how  can  cheapness  be  ob- 
tained ?    Only  by  cutting  down  the  expenses  of 

^W.  Cunningham,   "Christianity  and  Social  Questions,"  pp. 
122-123:  London,  1910. 

1582 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

production.  Other  manufacturers  possess  the 
same  machinery,  about  the  same  advantages  of 
location,  and  approximately  the  same  talent. 
Given  a  system  of  unrestrained  competition, 
each  firm  will  have  to  count  costs  to  within  a 
fraction  of  a  cent  and  reduce  expenses  to  the 
lowest  possible  amount.  To  this  end  wages  are 
often  cut,  workmen  speeded,  and  the  health  of 
employees  endangered. 

"No  one  of  us,"  says  the  manager  of  a  big 
department  store  in  St.  Louis,  "has  any  partic- 
ular consideration  in  the  purchase  price  of 
goods ;  the  ease  of  communication  and  the  large 
amount  of  advertising  make  it  impossible  for 
us  to  have  any  serious  advantage  over  others 
in  point  of  selling  price.  The  women  can  go 
from  one  store  to  another,  effectually  prevent- 
ing one  store  from  being  materially  higher 
priced  on  the  same  goods  than  another. 

*'The  great  struggle  is  over  the  expense  ac- 
count. This  brings  up  the  whole  question  of 
salaries,  the  amount  that  can  be  paid  to  em- 
ployees directly,  the  amount  that  is  spent  by  us 
in  caring  for  them,  compensation  for  length  of 
service.  .  .  .  All  these  have  to  be  handled 
from  the  expense  account,  and  it  is  on  this  point 
that  some  of  the  most  delicate  questions  of  mor- 

1591 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

als  arise,  and  they  involve  both  the  employer 
and  the  customer  in  the  treatment  of  the  em- 
ployee.'*^ 

It  is  true  that  some  economists  have  main- 
tained that  the  price  of  an  article  must  cover 
its  cost  of  production.^  But  as  Professor 
Carver  says,  such  an  opinion  "is  probably  the 
source  of  more  error  and  confusion  in  economic 
discussions  than  any  other  mistake."  (Loc. 
cit. )  It  may  be  granted,  indeed,  that  the  price 
will  never  be  much  below  the  eccpenses  of  pro- 
duction, understanding  by  "expenses  of  pro- 
duction" what  the  entrepreneur  must  pay  out 
in  wages,  interest,  etc.  Yet  even  this  is  not 
because  the  expenses  of  production  directly 
govern  prices.  They  affect  the  price  only  in- 
directly by  limiting  the  supply.  For  no  entre- 
preneur will  long  continue  in  business  if  he  be 
not  able  to  sell  his  product  at  a  profit,  and  his 
going  out  of  business  will  decrease  the  supply 
and  so  raise  the  price  by  the  well-known  law  of 
supply  and  demand. 

But  "costs  of  production,"  being  the  sum  of 

■^  "The  Socialized  Church,"  p.  120,  address  on  "The  Relation  of 
the  Church  to  Employees  in  Department  Stores,"  by  Hanford 
Crawford,  B.S.:  St.  Louis,  N.  Y.,  1909. 

8Cf.  T.  N.  Carver,  "Distribution  of  Wealth,"  p.  31:  N.  Y., 
1908. 

ceo] 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

the  efforts  and  sacrifices  of  all  concerned  in 
making  an  article,  are  very  different  from  "ex- 
penses of  production."  ^  It  is  by  no  means  true, 
as  Professor  Sidgwick  pointed  out  twenty-five 
years  ago,  that  the  amoimt  necessary  to  enable 
a  laborer  to  keep  himself  in  good  physical  con- 
dition and  reproduce  himself  forms  a  minimum 
below  which  the  self-interest  of  an  employer 
will  not  allow  wages  to  f  all/^ 

For  in  the  first  place,  there  is  no  assurance 
that  a  laborer  is  going  to  spend  his  wages  for 
this  purpose.  How,  then,  can  it  be  to  his  em- 
ployer's advantage  to  pay  him  more  than  he  is 
willing  to  take,  when  the  surplus  may  be  squan- 
dered in  drink?  And  even  assuming  that  the 
generality  of  laborers  must  receive  such  an 
amount  in  order  to  meet  the  demand  for  work- 
men, still  they  need  not  all  receive  it  from  their 
employers.  An  industry,  such  as  the  depart- 
ment stores,  may  try  to  get  girls  who  obtain 
part  of  their  support  from  fathers  or  brothers 
employed  in  other  businesses. ^^    Or  wages  of 

^Cf.  H.  R.  Seager,  "Introduction  to  Political  Economy,*'  pp. 
53-54:  N.  Y.,  1908. 

^^H.  Sidgwick,  "Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  p.  297: 
London,  1887. 

i^Cf.  "Wage-Earning  Women  in  Stores  and  Factories,"  p.  22: 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  1911. 

[61] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

large  classes  may  be  supplemented  by  public 
or  private  alms.  This  was  long  the  case  imder 
the  English  Poor  Law.  As  the  land-occupiers 
paid  the  greater  portion  of  the  rates,  it  was  to 
the  Manufacturers'  advantage  to  have  wages 
really  come  partly  from  the  parish. 

And  the  numbers  of  laborers  can  be  kept  sta- 
tionary without  each  workman,  or  even  every 
class,  receiving  enough  to  perpetuate  himself. 
For  their  ranks  can  easily  be  recruited  from  an 
over-supply  of  some  higher  class.  There  is  a 
constant  pressure  upon  the  upper  strata,  forc- 
ing down  the  unfit,  and  it  is  readily  conceivable 
that  these  failures  should  take  the  places  of  still 
greater  failures  below. 

There  is,  then,  no  physical  or  economic  neces- 
sity forcing  employers  to  pay  fair  wages  to 
each  individual  worker,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
are  using  the  word  "fair"  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment. "The  effort  to  organize  business  with  a 
view  to  cheap  production,  may  be  carried  on 
in  such  fashion  as  to  press  unduly  on  those  who 
work  for  wages ;  employers  are  in  a  position  in 
which  they  may  be  able  to  drive  hard  bargains 
as  to  hours  of  work  and  rates  of  pay,  and  to 
pass  on  the  risk  of  loss,  which  arises  from  fluc- 
tuations of  business,  to  be  borne  by  those  who 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

are  thrown  out  of  employment."  ^^  And  not 
only  may  this,  but  there  is  every  inducement  and 
almost  necessity  urging  that  it  should,  be  done 
except  where  the  workmen  are  organized.  No 
employer  can  afford  to  pay  a  workman  more 
than  his  surplus  over  and  above  what  would  be 
produced  without  him,  and  it  will  be.  to  his  ad- 
vantage to  pay  less.  He  is  a  purchaser  of  labor, 
and  like  every  other  purchaser  wants  to  get 
that  commodity  at  the  lowest  figure.  And 
there  are  several  differences  between  him  and 
the  purchaser  of  any  other  commodity  that  give 
him  a  distinct  advantage  in  the  bargain. 

In  the  first  place,  not  merely  increased  prof- 
its, what  would  be  represented  by  a  housewife's 
saving  in  shopping,  urge  him  to  buy  cheap  la- 
bor, but  his  own  industrial  existence,  which  will 
be  lost  if  he  does  not  get  his  workmen  as  cheap 
as  his  competitors.  Having  a  greater  prize  at 
stake,  he  develops  a  greater  skill.  He  has  a 
wider  view  of  economic  conditions,  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  trade  elsewhere,  and 
so  he  can  outbargain  the  unorganized  laborer. 

Again,  the  laborer  is  in  a  worse  position  than 
the  seller  of  almost  any  other  commodity.    For 

^2W.  Cunningham,  "Christianity  and  Social  Questions,"  p.  118: 
London,  1910. 

CSS] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

what  he  does  not  sell  to-day  disappears  abso- 
lutely. If  he  does  not  dispose  of  it  now  he  can- 
not to-morrow.  A  fruiterer  can  keep  his  or- 
anges until  the  next  day,  if  he  is  not  satisfied 
with  the  current  price.  But  to-day's  labor  can 
be  sold  only  to-day.  And  if  it  be  not  sold,  it  is 
probable  that  the  workman  will  be  physically 
less  fit  to-morrow.  Yet  even  if  he  does  accept 
the  wage  offered,  and  it  is  less  than  enough  to 
repair  the  daily  waste  of  force,  the  same  result 
will  be  brought  about  gradually.  He  is,  there- 
fore, confronted  by  the  dilemma  of  taking  what 
the  idle  are  willing  to  accept,  or  becoming  idle 
himself. 

It  needs  only  the  imagining  of  one's  self  in 
the  position  of  the  unemployed  to  see  that  there 
is  hardly  any  limit  below  which  the  wages  of 
the  weakest  may  not  fall.  A  man  without  spe- 
cial skill  and  without  savings,  with  not  only 
himself  but  others  to  look  out  for,  will  be  glad 
to  get  even  what  he  knows  will  not  completely 
support  him. 

"Without  organization  and  by  means  of  in- 
dividual bargaining,  wages  are  drawn  down- 
ward toward  the  level  set  by  what  idle  men  will 
accept,  which  may  be  less  than  they  will  pro- 
duce after  they  receive  employment  and  will 

[643 


THEORY  OF  INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION 

surely  be  less  than  they  will  produce  after  they 
have  developed  their  full  efficiency.  When  la- 
bor makes  its  bargains  with  employers  without 
organization  on  its  side,  the  parties  in  the  trans- 
action are  not  on  equal  terms  and  wages  are 
unduly  depressed.  The  individual  laborer  of- 
fers what  he  is  forced  to  sell,  and  the  employer 
is  not  forced  to  buy.  Delay  may  mean  priva- 
tion for  the  one  party  and  no  great  inconve- 
nience or  loss  for  the  other.  If  there  are  within 
reach  a  body  of  necessitous  men  out  of  employ- 
ment and  available  for  filling  the  positions  for 
which  individual  laborers  are  applying,  the  ap- 
plicants are  at  a  fatal  disadvantage."^^  Such 
is  the  opinion  of  a  conservative  economist  with 
an  especially  kindly  feeling  towards  the  com- 
petitive system. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  competi- 
tive organization  of  industry  has  a  tendency  to 
crush  out  the  weaklings.  How  numerous  are 
these  weaklings,  we  shall  now  discuss. 

13  J.  B.  Clark,  **Essentials  of  Economic  Theory,"  pp.  453  and 
456:  N.  Y.,  1907. 


[65] 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  WAGES 

WHAT  has  been  said  regarding  indus- 
trial conditions  is  not  mere  theorizing. 
Private,  state  and  federal  investigations  into 
actual  conditions  confirm  the  contention  that 
there  is  a  large  margin  of  unemployed,  and 
that  a  considerable  portion  of  those  who  do  find 
employment  are  overworked  and  underpaid  re- 
gardless of  life  and  limb.  Anyone  who  studies 
the  various  ofiicial  reports  on  this  subject,  must 
conclude  that  Dr.  De vine's  summary  of  the 
Pittsburgh  Survey  was  well  within  the  truth 
and  is  applicable  to  practically  the  whole  coun- 
try: 

"Low  wages  for  the  great  majority  of  the  la- 
borers employed  by  the  mills,  not  lower  than  in 
other  large  cities,  but  low  compared  with  the 
prices — so  low  as  to  be  inadequate  to  the  main- 
tenance of  a  normal  American  standard  of  liv- 
ing; wages  adjusted  to  the  single  man  in  the 
1:66] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  WAGES 

lodging  house,  not  the  responsible  head  of  a 
family. 

"Still  lower  wages  for  women,  who  receive, 
for  example,  in  one  of  the  metal  trades,  in 
which  the  proportion  of  women  is  great  enough 
to  be  menacing,  one-half  as  much  as  unorgan- 
ized men  in  the  same  shops  and  one-third  as 
much  as  men  in  the  union. 

"The  destruction  of  family  life;  not  in  any 
imaginary  or  mystical  sense,  but  by  the  de- 
mands of  the  day's  work,  and  by  the  very  de- 
monstrable and  material  method  of  typhoid 
fever  and  industrial  accidents;  both  preventa- 
ble, but  both  costing  in  single  years  in  Pitts- 
burgh considerably  more  than  a  thousand  lives, 
and  irretrievably  shattering  nearly  as  many 
homes."  ^ 

Assuming,  throughout  this  discussion,  that 
$6.00  a  week  ($1.00  a  week  less  than  Miss  But- 
ler's estimate),  or  $312.00  a  year  is  the  lowest 
fair  individual  wage;  and  $11.00  a  week,  or 
$572.00  a  year  is  the  lowest  fair  family  living 
wage:^  it  is  easy  to  show  from  reliable  reports 

1  Report  of  annual  convention  of  the  American  Sociological  So- 
ciety, 1908,  or  Charities  and  the  Commons,  now  the  Survey, 
March  6,  1909. 

2  Cf.  p.  36 f  for  discussion  of  fair  wage. 

[673 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

that  scores  of  thousands  of  individuals  and 
heads  of  families  fall  below  this  standard.  But 
in  considering  any  figures  quoted  here,  or  to 
be  found  elsewhere,  it  should  always  be  remem- 
bered that  the  actual  wage  may  be  much  below 
the  rate  of  wage.  One  employed  at  the  rate  of 
$6.00  a  week  may  not  make  anything  like  that 
because  of  loss  of  time. 

How  much  is  lost  through  unemployment,  it 
is  hard  to  say.  The  United  States  Industrial 
Commission  was  of  the  opinion,  that  "it  is  im- 
possible to  collect  statistics  of  any  value  what- 
ever relative  to  the  unemployment  of  unorgan- 
ized labor,  among  whom  lack  of  employment  is 
a  much  more  serious  thing  than  it  is  with  skilled 
or  organized  labor." ^  It  would  seem,  how- 
ever, that  in  the  clothing  trades,  the  employees 
lose  at  least  one  day  in  every  six.^  According 
to  a  Federal  report  issued  in  1911,  in  Baltimore 
one-fifth  of  the  force  worked  between  five  days 
and  full  time ;  one-tenth  between  four  and  five 
days;  one-seventh  between  two  and  three,  and 
five  per  cent,  two  days  or  less.^  A  report  of 
the  New  York  State  Bureau  of  Labor  for 

3  Vol.  XIX,  p.  754.  i  Loc.  dt.,  p.  T55. 

5  U.    S.   Bureau  of  Labor,  "Men's  Ready-Made   Clothing," 
p.  113. 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  WAGES 

1906^  contains  the  following  suggestive  table 
regarding  the  unemployment  of  certain  classes 
of  organized  labor.  It  may  rightly  be  assumed 
that  among  unorganized  workmen  conditions 
are  worse. 

TABLE  I. 

NO.  AND  PROPORTION  OF  UNEMPLOYED  WAGE-EARNERS 


No.  of 

No.  of 

No.  idle 

Per 

Per  cent  idle 

report'g 

report'g 

month 

idle 

1905 

1904 

1903 

1902 

1902-5 

Jan. 

191 

84,539 

12,682 

15. 

22.6 

25.8 

20.5 

20.9 

22.4 

Feb. 

190 

85,155 

13,031 

15.3 

19.4 

21.6 

17.8 

18.7 

19.4 

Mch. 

192 

25,956 

2,952 

11.6 

19.2 

27.1 

17.6 

17.3 

20.3 

Apr. 

192 

90,352 

6,583 

7,3 

11.8 

17.0 

17.3 

15.3 

15.4 

May 

192 

91,163 

6,364 

7.0 

8.3 

15.9 

20.2 

14.0 

14.6 

June 

192 

92,100 

5,801 

6.3 

9.1 

13.7 

23.1 

14.6 

15.1 

July 

195 

94,571 

7,229 

7.6 

8.0 

14.8 

17.8 

15.6 

14.1 

Aug. 

195 

94,220 

5,462 

5.8 

7.2 

13.7 

15.4 

7.1 

10.9 

Sept. 

195 

94,290 

5,252 

6.3 

5.9 

12.0 

9.4 

6.3 

8.4 

Oct. 

195 

92,052 

6,383 

6  9 

56 

10.8 

11.7 

4.2 

9.8 

Nov. 

195 

93,042 

7,052 

7.6 

6.1 

11.1 

16.4 

14.3 

12.0 

Dec. 

195 

93,318 

14,352 

15.4 

11.1 

19.6 

23.1 

22.2 

19.0 

Mean  for  year 

9.3 

11.2 

16.9 

17.5 

14.8 

15.1 

Other  deductions  that  must  be  made  from 
the  apparent  wage  are  the  withholding  of  pay 
for  long  periods,  exorbitant  prices  and  rents 
obtained  through  company  stores  and  houses, 
fines,  and  increases  in  the  cost  of  living. 

Therefore,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  conclude 
that  the  per  diem  or  weekly  wage  rate  as  given 
by  the  Bureau  of  Labor  and  other  reports,  af- 
fords, by  itself,  an  accurate  statement  only  of 
« p.  XI. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

the  maximum  yearly  wage.  This  should  al- 
ways be  remembered  in  judging  any  facts  here- 
after adduced. 

In  the  fifteenth  volume  of  the  bulletins  of  the 
Bureau  of  Labor  will  be  found  many  interest- 
ing tables  bearing  on  this  question  of  wages. 
But  as  it  is  impracticable  to  quote  them  at  any 
length  here,  a  few  of  the  more  salient  facts 
must  suffice.  Laborers  in  the  flour  mills  of  the 
South  were  working  twelve  hours  a  day  for 
lie.  an  hour.^  Women  in  the  carpet  factories 
of  the  North  were  getting  no  more.^  In  the 
factory  product  of  the  clothing  trade  great 
numbers  received  less  than  lOc,  lie,  and  12c. 
an  hour  (p.  35),  and  the  compensation  in 
sweatshops  was  much  less.  Male  boarders  in 
the  knit-goods  factories  of  the  North- Central 
section  were  averaging  less  than  $387.00  per 
annum.  Women  in  the  same  factories  were 
getting  much  less,  some  even  as  low  as  7c. 
and  8c.  an  hour  (p.  43).  Silk-spinners  in 
the  North- Atlantic  section  were  making  only 
$5.00  a  week,  or  less  than  $260.00  a  year,  for  a 
nine  and  one-half  hour  day  (p.  58).  Male 
cigar-stemmers  in  the  same  section  were  mak- 
ing $6.00  a  week  (p.  59).     In  Michigan,  in 

7  Loc.  cit.,  p.  37.  8  p.  31. 

[70] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  WAGES 

1905,  there  were  3414  boys  between  fourteen 
and  sixteen  earning  on  an  average  77c.  a  day, 
and  1725  girls  making  64c.  a  day.  In  1904, 
the  average  yearly  earnings  in  the  food  prepa- 
rations industry  was  $441.00;  in  salt  produc- 
tion, $451.00;  on  tobacco  and  cigars,  $393.00 
(p.  334). 

In  New  Jersey,  in  1904-5,  the  average  earn- 
ings in  the  cigar  industry  were  $316.70;  silk- 
weaving,  $480.11;  woolen  and  worsted  goods, 
$373.43.  In  the  same  State  in  1903-4,  there 
were  1985  adult  males  receiving  less  than  $3.00 
a  week;  3234  between  $3.00  and  $4.00;  5595 
between  $4.00  and  $5.00;  6037  between  $5.00 
and  $6.00;  12,406  between  $7.00  and  $8.00; 
14,300  between  $8.00  and  $9.00,  though  $9.00, 
working  full  time  every  week,  would  be  only 
$468.00  a  year. 

The  very  latest  reports  available  confirm 
these  figures.  In  the  cotton  textile  industry 
alone,  29,974  employees,  or  53.77%  of  the  total 
number  investigated  (11,484  men  and  18,490 
women)  were  being  paid  at  a  rate  less  than 
$6.00  a  week.^  If  we  take  the  $11.00  rate,  or 
family  living  wage,  we  find  that  19,382  men 

9  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  "Cotton  Textile  Industry,"  p.  305, 
1910. 

[71] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

(89%  of  the  total)  fall  below  it  (L  c).  And 
as  only  55%  of  the  men  employed  in  this 
industry  were  single  (I.e.,  p.  132),  at  least 
7285  of  these  men  must  have  been  married,  and 
hence  receiving  less  than  the  normal  family  liv- 
ing wage.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that 
these  figures  are  based  upon  the  assumption 
that  full  time  is  made.  Could  we  get  the  actual 
wages,  these  groups  would  be  much  larger. 
This  is  shown  by  the  table  on  page  329  of  this 
report,  where  actual  wages  average  $1.32  less 
than  computed  full  time  earnings. 

If  we  turn  to  the  clothing  industry,  we  find 
conditions  even  worse.  In  the  five  cities  inves- 
tigated (New  York,  Chicago,  Baltimore, 
Rochester,  and  Philadelphia),  6788  employees, 
or  37%  of  the  total  (1217  men  and  5571  wo- 
men) were  being  paid  at  a  rate  less  than  the  in- 
dividual living  wage  of  $6.00.  Taking  the  fam- 
ily living  wage  of  $11.00  as  our  standard,  3499 
men,  or  62%  of  the  total,  fail  to  reach  it.^^ 

Again  it  must  be  repeated,  that  the  actual 
wages  are  from  7^/4  to  20l^%  lower  than  these 
figures  (1.  c,  p.  161).    In  one  New  York  spe- 

1^  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  "Men's  Ready-Made  Clothing,"  p. 
129. 

1:723 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  WAGES 

cial  order  shop,  the  earnings  for  December  fall 
to  55%  of  the  average  (1.  c.,  p.  178) . 

These  figures,  however,  are  for  shop-workers 
only.  The  average  wages  for  home-workers 
are:  Chicago,  $4.35;  Rochester,  $4.14;  New 
York,  $3.61;  Philadelphia,  $2.88;  and  Balti- 
more, $2.24.  "Here  again  the  caution  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  home-workers'  wages,  low 
as  they  are,  often  stand  for  the  earnings  of 
more  than  one  worker.  Sometimes,  as  reported 
on  the  books  of  the  firm,  it  represents  the  earn- 
ings of  more  than  one  week"  (1.  c,  p.  139). 
Ninety-eight  per  cent,  of  the  married  shop-fin- 
ishers, and  practically  all  of  the  home-finishers, 
too,  earned  less  than  $350.00  a  year  (1.  c,  p. 
226).  The  average  yearly  earnings  of  home- 
workers  are  given  as  varying  from  $120.00  in 
New  York  to  $196.00  in  Rochester.  From 
page  235  to  239  inclusive,  the  details  of  the 
earnings,  size  of  families,  and  number  of  those 
working  is  gone  into  at  great  length.  It  must 
suffice  here  to  say  that  families  of  five  are  re- 
corded whose  total  yearly  earnings  are  less  than 
$100.00.  One  family  of  eleven  is  chronicled 
whose  yearly  income  was  $445.00,  sixty-five 
dollars  of  which  was  earned  by  home-work. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

Working  six  days  a  week  for  ten  hours  a  day, 
the  home-worker  cannot  hope  to  make  more 
than  $156.00  a  year.^^ 

Seventy-six  per  cent,  of  the  women  em- 
ployed in  the  glass  industry  earned  less  than 
six  dollars  a  week.^^  Their  average  annual 
earnings,  in  fact,  are  stated  as  ranging  from 
$163.00  for  those  sixteen  years  old  to  $292.00 
for  those  from  twenty-five  to  twenty-nine 
(1.  c,  p.  544).  Nearly  one-third  of  the  fe- 
male department-store  employees  receive  less 
than  $6.00  a  week.^^  Yet  many  of  them  had 
other  persons  depending  upon  them  (1.  c,  p. 
55).  One  family,  consisting  of  a  mother,  sev- 
enteen-year-old daughter,  and  three  younger 
children,  was  supported  by  the  daughter's  $5.00 
a  week.  They  managed  it  by  living  in  two 
rooms  and  eating  practically  nothing  besides 
bread  and  tea  or  coffee  (1.  c,  p.  56) . 

In  New  York  State  in  1906,^^  it  was  found 
that  even  among  organized  laborers  reporting 


11 L.  c,  p.  301;  cf.  also  20th  Annual  Report  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  of  N.  Y.,  pp.  66-67,  here  quoted. 

12  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  "Glass  Industry,"  p.  405,  1911. 

1^  U.  S.  Bureau  Lab.,  "Wage-Earning  Women  in  Stores  and 
Factories,"  p.  46,  1911. 

"  Report  of  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  of  New  York  for  1906, 
p.  XXXL 

1:743 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  WAGES 

to  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  6078  men  and  2011 
women  were  earning  less  than  the  lowest  indi- 
vidual living  wage  ($300.00),  and  59,226  men 
and  8881  women  (17.6%  and  63.8%  respec- 
tively) were  earning  less  than  the  lowest  fam- 
ily living  wage  ($600.00) .  If  conditions  were 
so  bad  among  union  men,  they  were  probably 
much  worse  among  unorganized  workers. 

In  Pittsburgh,  in  the  canneries,  59%  of  the 
girls  make  only  $6.00  a  week,  or  less  (Butler, 
1.  c,  p.  38) .  Of  those  employed  in  the  confec- 
tionery trades,  only  twenty-one  earn  as  much 
as  seven  dollars  (1.  c,  p.  50).  And  these  two 
trades  have  inevitable  dull  seasons  that  cut 
wages  much  below  these  figures.  Seven  hun- 
dred out  of  nine  hundred  girls  in  the  cracker 
business  receive  less  than  $6.00  a  week  (1.  c,  p. 
70) .  Laundries  are  amongst  the  worst  paying 
establishments,  and  there  is  practically  no 
chance  of  advancement.  The  shakers-out  never 
earn  more  than  $4.00  a  week,  and  usually  only 
$3.00  or  $3.50  (1.  c,  p.  170) .  No  mangle  girl 
makes  more  than  $6.00  and  most  between  $3.00 
and  $5.00  (p.  173).  Broom-making  often 
gives  only  $2.50  a  week,  and  the  highest  is  $5.00 
(p.  252) .  Many  box-makers  earn  only  60c.  or 
80c.  a  day,  and  80%  of  the  girls  are  being  paid 
1:753 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

less  than  $6.00  a  week  (p.  261 ) .  Packing  soap- 
powder  in  stifling  rooms  pay  $4.50  (p.  270). 
Nearly  50%  of  the  girls  in  the  printing  trades 
are  below  the  $6.00  standard. 

These,  then,  are  the  facts  concerning  wages. 
But  no  social  fact  can  be  entirely  isolated.  It 
is  always  intimately  connected  with  many  oth- 
ers, and  no  treatment  of  wages  can  be  at  all 
satisfactory  without  going  to  some  extent  into 
the  ramifications  of  this  subject  along  other 
lines.  A  chapter,  therefore,  will  be  devoted  to 
the  question  of  health  and  of  morals  as  affected 
by  industrial  conditions  and  low  wages. 


176-2 


CHAPTER  SIX 

INDUSTRIAL   CONDITIONS:    HEALTH 

THE  inevitable  result  of  low  wages  is  poor 
health.  Bad  housing  conditions  and  in- 
sufficient food  must  follow  upon  the  heels  of 
scanty  pay,  unless  the  wages  are  supplemented 
in  some  other  way;  and  that  means  anemia, 
tuberculosis,  tjnphoid,  and  general  physical  de- 
bihty.  "In  the  New  York  block"  bounded  by 
E.  Houston,  Mott,  Prince,  and  Elizabeth  Sts., 
"one  of  every  nine  children  born  dies  before  it 
attains  the  age  of  five  years.  The  death  and 
disease  rates  are  abnormal.  The  death  rates 
for  all  ages  in  the  City  of  New  York  in  1905-6 
was  18.35  per  thousand,  and  for  those  under 
five  years  it  was  51.5;  but  in  this  block  it  was 
24.0  for  all  ages  and  for  those  under  five  years 
it  was  92.2."^  ^'Nothing  could  be  added  to  or 
taken  away  from  these  homes  to  add  to  their 
squalor."     (P.  296.) 

1 U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  "Men's  Ready-Made  Clothing,"  p.  297. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

The  conditionis  of  many  workers'  homes  can 
be  learned  in  detail  from  pages  254-259  of  the 
Federal  report  just  quoted.  Here  only  a  few 
of  the  leading  facts  can  be  mentioned.  Thus  in 
Pittsburgh  51.1%  of  the  families  investigated 
had  as  many  as  three  persons  per  sleeping 
room.^  Eleven  per  cent,  of  female  factory  and 
miscellaneous  employees  and  nine  per  cent,  of 
store  girls  are  rated  as  having  "bad"  housing 
conditions  and  bad  f ood.^  Very  few  girls  doing 
"light  housekeeping"  get  proper  breakfasts 
(1.  c,  p.  18) ,  or,  indeed,  any  other  meals.  It  is 
not  because  they  can't  cook,  but  because  they 
have  to  keep  food  expenses  to  a  minimum  in 
order  to  buy  clothes,  pay  room-rent,  doctors, 
etc. 

"  'You  see  I  'm  dieting,'  said  a  frail  slip  of  a 
department-store  girl  as  she  held  out  her  tray 
upon  which  the  cafeteria  cashier,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Bureau's  agent,  put  a  two-cent 
check,  covering  the  cost  of  the  girl's  lunch— a 
small  dish  of  tapioca.  She  may  have  been  diet- 
ing, but  the  evidences  were  pathetically  against 
the  need  thereof,  and  there  were  some  things 

2U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  **Glass  Industry,"  p.  607. 
^U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  * 'Wage-Earning  Women  in  Stores  and 
Factories,"  p.  134. 

11783 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

telling  other  tales  to  a  thoughtful  observer. 
The  girl's  shoes  and  waist  and  skirt  were 
plainly  getting  weary  of  well-doing,  and  to 
hold  her  position  as  sales-woman  they  must 
soon  be  replaced"  (1.  c.,  p.  17) . 

The  tables  on  pages  80  and  81,  to  one  who 
practises  the  "great  transmigratory  art"  (as 
Charles  Reade  calls  it)  of  putting  yourself  in 
another's  place,  tell  pitiful  stories  of  making 
ends  meet  (1.  c,  pp.  54i-55) . 

But  bad  food  and  bad  housing  are  not  the 
only  enemies  of  the  workman's  health.  The 
nature  of  his  daily  toil  and  the  conditions  under 
which  it  is  performed  are  often  against  him. 
Even  ventilation  becomes  important  when  one 
has  to  spend  ten,  eleven,  or  twelve  hours  a  day 
in  one  room,  and  yet  this  is  almost  entirely  neg- 
lected. 

In  1908  a  special  officer  was  appointed  in 
New  York  State  to  make  tests  of  the  atmo- 
spheric conditions  in  places  of  business.  One 
hundred  and  thirty-six  factories  were  exam- 
ined, and  in  some  printing  establishments  as 
many  as  forty  parts  of  carbonic-acid  gas  ( CO2) 
in  ten  thousand  volumes  of  air  were  found, 
though  a  legal  limit  of  twelve  is  recommended. 
One  cigar  factory,  with  windows  partly  open, 

1:793 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 


1 

1 

1 

-^ 

> 

o 

4-> 

1 

c 

i 
i 

1 

C0TH«0Tt<t>0ie0t-0St*O0J«0NMl0O»0"*THC0(Nl0rHN05 

* 

$6.50 
and 
over 

!  I  !   !  .'   I  !   !   !   !  .'  rH   ;  th   :   :  th   :  N   :  T-t   ;   I  :   I  iH 

t> 

$6.00 

to 
$6.49 

I  I  !  I  !  !   !  !  !  :  T-i  ;  !  th  ;  :  :  r-i  :  :  ■  :  iH  I  I  ; 

-^ 

$5.50 
to 

$5.99 

;   ."   '.   '.   '.r-i   ;thth(m  I   :   :ojr-i   :^   :       :th   tin   '.r-t  ' 

$5.00 

to 
$5.49 

'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.    '.y^    '.'.:    ',y^    ][;    ; 

(N 

$4.50 

to 
$4.99 

'.   I   I   '.   '.   ;c^(NiH   :<M   :   ;(Mih(Mth   :t-i       ;n   :   i   : 

S 

$4.00 

to 
$4.49 

T-i  :  :  :  :  :  :  :T-icorH<N  :io(mth(Mt-(  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : 

s 

$3.50 

to 
$3.99 

th  :  :  :  : co th co « ih (n th (m co lo th  :t-i  :  :  :  :  i^h  :th 

s 

:     ItH     l-r-i      :02iOC0(MC0     :rJ<(MiOTH<N     :(M      !     irHrH      I     :     I 

^ 

$2.50 

to 
$2.99 

:(NtH<MtHtH      :<N(MCOrHTj<r-ICOr-l      ItH      1                         1     I  r-i      [ 

s 

$2.00 
to 

$2.49 

:r-iTHCQ(NC<ic<i«oc^c^«oc^T-ico^        !    !    I    ;    !    !    !    ;    :    I 

^ 

$1.50 

to 
$1.99 

th    :  rH    :  <M  th  (M  Tt<  CO  (N  (N    '.  ^  Vi  CO    '.        '.        .*  th    ;        ;    :    : 

s 

$1.00 

to 
$1.49 

:  :  th  th  :  :  <n  lo  :  <n  «  :  ih  :  ih  :  th  :  :  ;  :  :  :  :  :  : 

Un- 
der 
$1.00 

:::::  r-i  <N  th  <N  ;:::  th  :::::::::::  : 

t- 

5 

^§^§^i^g^S^§^g^§^^^g^gg§§| 

i 

THTH<Ndc0(WTj<TjHlOlO<©«Db^t^cdc»O5OsddTHr-i(NC0rf   O 
m-                                                                                                                  r-l  iH  tH  tH  rH  T-l  tH  >j 

0»OOiOOiOOiOOiOOiOO»OOiOOiOOU30»00000 

■rHTHG<lNCOCOrt<TjHU3lO«OCOI>l>OOOOOi0500THiH(NCO'^lO 

[803 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 


yUMBER  OF  WOMEN  WAGE-EARNERS  REEFING  HOUSE  WHO   HAVE  BFKCl- 
FIED  NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  WHOLLY  OR  PARTLALLY  DEPENDENT 


ON  THEM  FOR 

SUPPORT, 

BY  WAGE  GROUPS 

No.  of  women  having 

No. 

of  women  having 

Average 
Weekly 
Earnings 

wholly  dependent 
on  them 

pa 

rtially  dependent 
on  them 

1 
per-  p 

2 

er- 

3 

per- 

4 

per- 

Tot. 

1 

per- 

2 

per- 

3 

per- 

4 
per- 

Tot. 

son  sc 

ms 

sons 

sons 

son 

sons 

sons 

sons 

$  1.00 

$   1.49 

. . 

1.50 

1.99 

2.00 

2.49 

1 

1 

1 

3 

4 

2.50 

2.99 

1 

, . 

1 

2 

3.00 

3.49 

1 

1 

2 

2 

1 

3 

3.50 

3.99 

1 

1 

1 

2 

1 

4 

4.00 

4.49 

2 

1 

3 

2 

3 

3 

1 

9 

4.50 

4.99 

1 

2 

2 

5 

4 

2 

3 

2 

11 

5.00 

5.49 

. . 

1 

1 

2 

7 

1 

. , 

2 

10 

6.50 

5.99 

2 

1 

3 

4 

1 

5 

6.00 

6.49 

. , 

1 

1 

2 

5 

3 

1 

1 

10 

6.50 

6.99 

4 

1 

1 

6 

7.00 

7.49 

3 

1 

4 

1 

1 

1 

3 

7.50 

7.99 

3 

2 

5 

10 

1 

11 

8.00 

8.49 

6 

. 

1 

7 

4 

2 

1 

7 

8.50 

8.99 

2 

1 

3 

2 

2 

9.00 

9.49 

2 

2 

1 

5 

9.50 

9.99 

1 

1 

1 

1 

10.00 

10.49 

2 

2 

10.50 

10.99 

1 

1 

11.00 

11.49 

1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

11.50 

:    11.99 

1 

1 

1 

., 

1 

12.00 

:     12.99 

1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

13.00 

:     13.99 

14.00 

:     14.99 

1 

1 

.. 

.. 

.. 

.. 

.. 

15.00 

:    over 

1 

1 

2 

1 

1 

Total 

24 

8 

10 

4 

46 

54 

21 

15 

11 

101 

C81] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

had  eighty  such  parts.  The  following  table  will 
exhibit  the  results  of  this  investigation.^ 


Parts  of  CO2  in 
10,000  vols,  air 

5-12 

13-20 

21-25 

26-30 

31-40 

42-60 

65-70 

75-80 

Factories  in 
each  class 

82 

166 

80 

67 

30 

8 

3 

3 

Sometimes  the  exigencies  of  the  trade  require 
that  there  should  be  no  draft,  as  in  the  handling 
of  carbon  filaments  for  incandescent  lamps,  and 
then  the  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  become 
acutely  unhealthy.  In  addition,  in  some  of  the 
rooms  numerous  bunsen  burners  are  always 
lighted  and  all  currents  of  air  carefully  ex- 
cluded to  prevent  their  flickering.^ 

Elsewhere,  the  process  of  manufacture  often 
vitiates  the  air,  as  the  "blow-over"  in  bottle 
shops.  "In  some  factories,  at  times  the  air  is 
so  full  of  this  floating  glass  that  the  hair  is 
whitened  by  merely  passing  through  the  room. 
It  sticks  to  the  perspiration  on  the  face  and 
arms  of  the  boys  and  men  and  becomes  a  source 
of  considerable  irritation.  Getting  into  the 
eyes  it  is  especially  troublesome"  (1.  c,  p.  66) . 
Something  similar  occurs  in  etching  glass  by  a 

*  Cf.  Report  of  Commissioner  of  Labor  of  New  York  for  1908 
Vol.  I,  pp.  76-93. 
5U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  "Glass  Industry,"  p.  500. 

[82] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

sand-blast.  Unless  a  hood  and  exhaust  are  pro- 
vided, a  pressure  of  from  fifty  to  ninety  pounds 
scatters  fine  sand  and  glass  dust  through  the 
air  and  is  breathed  in  by  the  operator  (1.  e.,  p. 
440) .  Even  worse,  however,  is  the  acid  etching, 
as  the  fumes  of  hydrochloric  acid  cause  severe 
irritation  to  the  throat  and  lungs  (1.  c,  p.  442) . 
Even  when  there  is  no  such  irritant  in  the 
air  as  just  mentioned,  extreme  differences  in 
temperature  between  the  work-room  and  the 
outside,  or  between  various  parts  of  the  shop, 
may  be  a  source  of  serious  danger  to  health.  In 
the  glass  industry,  many  persons  have  to  work 
in  temperatures  ranging  from  ninety  to  one 
hundred  and  forty  degrees,  and  as  high  as  fifty 
degrees  above  the  outside  air  (1.  c,  p.  75) .  In- 
dustries where  an  artificial  humidity  is  re- 
quired, such  as  silk,  cotton  and  flax  spinning, 
are  likely  to  induce  rheumatism,  pleurisy,  etc. 
After  working  ten  hours  in  a  room  filled  with 
hve  steam  to  prevent  breaking  of  threads,  to 
pass  into  a  New  England  blizzard  is  apt  to  pro- 
duce serious  results.  The  boys  in  bottle-mak- 
ing shops  are  obliged  to  pass  continually  from 
a  temperature  of  140  degrees  at  the  "glory- 
hole"  to  one  of  90  degrees  or  less  in  other  parts 
(Le.,pp.  49ff.). 

CSS] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

And  even  if  conditions  of  atmosphere  and 
ventilation  are  good,  the  mere  fact  of  continu- 
ing work  for  thirteen  hours  seven  days  a  week 
tells  seriously  upon  the  physical  endurance  of 
the  strongest.^  When  night  work  is  required  in 
addition  to  the  day's  labor,  as  in  the  glass  in- 
dustry, the  consequences  are  likely  to  be  worse, 
especially  where  children  are  concerned/  Night 
work  frequently  means  a  presence  in  the  fac- 
tory of  at  least  twenty  hours  out  of  the  twenty- 
four.  "During  the  course  of  the  investigation 
there  were  found  two  cases  of  recent  death, 
both  children,  which  could  be  directly  attrib- 
uted to  exhaustion  due  to  double-shift  work  in 
the  furnace  room"  (1.  c,  p.  122) . 

In  the  clothing  trade,  "some  piece  and  task- 
workers  reported  that  they  conmionly  worked 
seventy-two  and  even  seventy-eight  hours  a 
week  during  busy  periods"  (1.  c,  p.  115). 
"There  were  instances  where  women  said  they 
worked  from  6  or  7  o'clock  in  the  morning  to 
9,  10,  or  11  o'clock  at  night"  (1.  c,  p.  241). 
For  store  girls,  "thirteen  and  one-half  hours  on 
Saturday  is  not  only  excessive  but  works  con- 

*U.   S.   Commissioner  of  Labor,  "Strike  at  Bethlehem  Steel 
Works,"  p.  10,  1910. 
■^U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Glass  Industry,"  p.  118. 

[84] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

siderable  hardship."^  "One  girl  worked  24% 
hours  at  one  stretch  with  but  two  half -hour  in- 
termissions for  meals.  .  .  .  Four  girls  working 
in  one  establishment  on  the  *night  force'  one 
day  for  each  week  reported  their  longest  day's' 
labor  as  163^4,  20%,  221/2,  24I4  hours"  (1.  c, 
p.  205) .  On  the  elevated  railways  in  Chicago, 
at  the  time  of  the  investigation,  1907-08,  wo- 
men worked  for  80%  hours  a  week  (1.  c,  p. 
208). 

When  the  business  requires  the  maintaining 
of  practically  one  position  all  day,  whether 
standing  or  sitting,  such  long  hours  are  bound 
to  have  a  bad  physical  effect.  This  is  the  case, 
for  example,  in  department  stores  (1.  c,  p. 
178) ;  in  the  glass  industry  where  many  grow- 
ing boys  are  cramped  before  the  furnace  holes 
all  day  long;^  in  many  processes  in  the  manu- 
facture of  incandescent  lamps  (1.  c,  p.  482- 
483) ;  and  numerous  other  occupations. 

But  there  is  frequently  added  to  mere  length 
of  hours  a  feverish  haste  in  working  induced  by 
starvation  piece-rates  or  by  the  necessity  of 
keeping  up  with  a  machine.    When  a  woman 

*U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Women  Wage-Earners  in  Stores  and  Fac- 
tories," p.  127. 
»U.  S.,Bur.  Lab.,  "Glass  Industry,"  p.  48. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

perforates  3100  bulbs  a  day  and  welds  tubes  to 
them,  there  must  be  a  constant  nervous  tension 
to  attain  such  rapidity  (1.  c,  p.  469).  The 
even  more  complex  operation  of  stem-making 
for  these  bulbs  proceeds  at  a  rate  varying  from 
2600  to  3500  a  day  (1.  c,  p.  467) .  Three  thou- 
sand stems  and  bulbs  are  assembled  each  day 
(p.  470),  while  in  one  day,  an  expert  will  test 
the  candle-power  of  5000  lamps  ( p.  472 ) .  The 
operation  of  mounting  Tungsten  filaments  in 
small  copper  wire  is  very  much  like  threading 
an  exceedingly  small  needle.  If  one  imagines 
this  repeated  3000  times  a  day,  with  thread  that 
has  to  be  handled  with  the  greatest  care  to  pre- 
vent breaking,  he  will  have  some  idea  of  the 
strain  on  eyes  and  nerves  (p.  478).  Twenty 
thousand  completed  lamps  are  tested  daily  at  a 
piece  rate  of  6c.  per  thousand  lamps  (pp.  486- 
487). 

Very  frequently,  too,  these  long  hours  at  an 
intense  strain  must  be  spent  at  work  positively 
dangerous  on  account  of  the  process,  such  as 
matchmaking^^  or  painting  lamps. ^^  Chem- 
ical poisoning  is  frequent  in  hatters'  and  fur- 

I'^U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  Bulletin  No.  68,  Jan.,  1910:  "Phosphorus 
Poisoning  in  the  Match  Industry." 
11  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Glass  Industry,*'  pp.  485-486. 

CSS] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

riers'  work,  and  plumbism,  which  is  very  similar 
to  phosphorous  poisoning,  besets  any  trade  in 
which  lead  is  used.  This  is  the  case,  in  the 
production  of  white,  red,  or  yellow  lead,  indus- 
tries in  which  goods  dyed  with  them  undergo 
the  process  of  building,  winding,  weaving,  etc., 
and  such  an  apparently  innocuous  occupation 
as  the  manufacture  of  earthenware  and  pot- 
tery. ''One  of  the  first  symptoms  of  plumbism 
is  a  blue  gum,  followed  by  loosening  and  drop- 
ping out  of  the  teeth.  Blindness,  paralysis,  and 
death  in  convulsions  frequently  follow.  Besides 
plumbism  there  are  serious  indirect  results  from 
lead-poisoning  in  a  number  of  industries."  ^^ 
Readers  of  George  Bernard  Shaw  will  remem- 
ber that  Mrs.  Warren  adopted  her  profession 
through  fear  of  contracting  this  disease.  Her 
sister  had  fallen  a  victim  to  it  and  the  fright- 
ful ravages  made  among  her  friends  drove 
her  to  this  course.  In  other  industries  such 
as  wool  sorting,  blanket  stoving  and  tenter- 
ing,  and  warp  dressing,  lock-jaw  is  an  in- 
cident. 

Closely  allied  to  a  question  already  discussed, 
that  of  ventilations,  is  the  insidious  injury 
wrought  by  dust  in  the  air.     Some  trades  in 

12  U.  S.  Indus.  Comm.,  Vol.  XIX,  p.  901f. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

which  this  condition  is  pronounced,  seem  ma- 
terially to  shorten  life,  as  shown  by  a  bulletin 
of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  for  May, 
1909,  on  ''Mortality  from  Consumption  in  Cer- 
tain Occupations."  The  proportion  of  those 
reaching  the  age  of  65  and  over  among  tobacco 
and  cigar  factory  operatives  was  1.8% ;  glove- 
makers,  2.3%;  bakers,  2.4%;  leather  curriers 
and  tanners,  2.9%;  and  confectioners,  3.1%: 
as  against  4.7%,  the  average  expected  normal 
on  the  basis  of  all  occupied  males  in  the  United 
States  (1.  c,  p.  623). 

Eighty-nine  per  cent,  of  the  clergymen  who 
died  in  1900  were  over  44,  and  55%  over  65 
years  of  age;  76%  of  the  lawyers  dying  in  this 
year  were  over  44,  and  41%  over  65;  73%  and 
41  %  of  the  physicians  had  passed  these  respec- 
tive ages;  80%  and  37%  of  the  bankers,  offi- 
cials of  companies,  etc.,  were  over  44  and  65: 
yet  more  than  half  of  the  compositors  dying  in 
the  United  States  for  the  year  were  under  49 
years  of  age.  About  one-half  of  these  died  of 
pulmonary  tuberculosis.  Only  18%  were  over 
60.^2  Between  1892  and  1898,  32%  of  the 
deaths  of  glass  bottle-blowers  were  due  to 
tuberculosis,  largely  induced,  probably,  by  the 

"Rep.  N.  Y.  State  Bur.  Lab.,  1906,  pp.  CVII-CXXXV. 
CSS] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

strain  on  the  lungs,  the  "blow-over,"  and  con- 
ditions of  temperature/^ 

Industrial  mortality  insurance  statistics  show 
that  23%  of  the  deaths  of  those  employed  in 
trades  exposed  to  organic  dust  are  from  con- 
sumption and  14%  from  other  respiratory  dis- 
eases, as  against  14.8%  and  11.7%,  the  ex- 
pected respective  averages  for  the  United 
States.^^  The  following  table  taken  from  the 
bulletin  just  quoted  will  probably  exhibit  the 
results  more  strikingly  (p.  626) : 


Age  at  death 

Per  cent,  of  deaths  due  to  consumption 
among: 

Occupations  exposed 
to  organic  dust 

Males  in  registration 
area,  1900-1906 

15-24  years 
25-34  years 
35-44  years 
45-54  years 
55-64  years 
65  and  over 

40.1 
49.0 
35.3 
21.6 
11.0 
4.5 

•27.8 

31.3 

23.6 

15.0 

8.1 

2.7 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  table,  that  deaths 
from  consumption  in  these  trades  exposed  to 
organic  dust  were  more  than  half  again  as 
much  as  might  reasonably  have  been  expected. 
And  it  must  be  remembered  that  statistics  indi- 
cate, "  that  general  organic  dust  is  less  serious 
in  its  fatal  effects  than  mineral  or  metallic  dust, 

i*U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Glass  Industry,"  p.  240. 
15 Bull.  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  May,  1909,  p.  626. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

and  as  a  result  the  proportionate  mortality 
from  consmnption  and  other  respiratory  dis- 
eases in  this  group  is  more  favorable  than  in  the 
groups  of  occupations  with  exposure  to  min- 
eral and  metallic  dusts"  (1.  c,  p.  627) . 

More  evident  dangers  of  occupation,  because 
more  directly  traceable  to  their  causes,  are  in- 
dustrial accidents.  Manufacturers  and  em- 
ployers sometimes  wantonly,  sometimes 
through  Ignorance,  neglect  the  precautions  and 
appliances  necessary  properly  to  safeguard 
their  workmen.  The  introduction  of  compli- 
cated machinery,  the  use  of  high-power  explo- 
sives, the  strenuous  conduct  of  production, 
without  corresponding  efforts  to  offset  the  nat- 
ural tendencies  of  these  conditions  and  tools,  has 
made  peace  more  horrible  and  dangerous  than 
war. 

Of  all  such  sources  of  accident,  mines  are 
probably  the  most  prolific.  "The  percentage 
of  miners  killed  in  this  country  is  greater  than 
in  any  other,  being  from  two  to  four  times  as 
large  as  in  any  European  country."  ^^  "Every 
year  of  the  past  decade,"  1890-1900,  "has  seen 
from  500  to  700  Pennsylvania  miners  killed 

16  "Monthly  Catalogue  U.  S.  Public  Documents,"  Nov.,  1909, 
p.  184. 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

and  from  1200  to  1650  injured.  By  comparing 
these  figures  with  the  total  number  employed, 
it  will  be  found  that  on  the  average  about  one 
man  in  every  400  employed  in  the  mines  is 
killed  yearly  and  about  one  out  of  every  150 
injured."  ^"^ 

In  37  New  England  cotton  mills  in  1907, 
1428  employees  were  injured.^^  The  Beth- 
lehem Steel  Works  alone  had  a  record  of  927 
accidents  in  1909.^^  In  New  York  State,  dur- 
ing a  year  of  industrial  depression,  1907,  there 
were  14,545  accidents  recorded,^^  and  we  know 
that  they  are  more  numerous  in  prosperous 
years. 

Time  and  again  we  find  in  the  succinct  offi- 
cial reports  such  terse  statements  as:  "While 
working  on  top  of  boiler  was  overcome  by  gas : 
dead  when  found,"  "struck  by  pieces  thrown 
from  bursting  emery  wheel,  died  from  injuries 
ten  days  later,"  '*heavy  piece  of  machinery  was 
being  moved  by  crane  which  broke,  allowing 
machinery  to  fall  against  tank,  which  in  turn 
fell  against  deceased,  crushing  his  legs  and  in- 

I'^U.  S.  Indus.  Com.,  Vol.  XIX,  p.  906. 
18 U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  "Cotton  Textile  Industry,"  p.  383. 
^^U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Labor,  "Report  on  Strike  at  Bethle- 
hem Steel  Works,"  p.  121. 

20  Report  of  Commissioner  of  Labor  of  N.  Y.,  1908,  pt.  I,  p.  62. 

ceo 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

juring  him  internally:  death  occurred  one  hour 
later,"  "caught  in  belt  and  whirled  around 
shafting;  death  occurred  before  machinery 
could  be  stopped,"  "struck  in  face  by  broken 
belt;  eyeball  broken:  death  ensued  two  days 
later  at  hospital  from  effects  of  anaesthetic," 
"broken  elevator  shaft  caused  elevator  to  fall 
with  operator;  skull  fractured  and  ear  lacer- 
ated: death  ensued  later  at  hospital"  (1.  c,  pt. 
I,  pp.  109-113). 

Such  are  the  official  reports.  They  give  no 
idea  of  the  suffering  of  the  families,  the  strug- 
gles of  widows  and  orphans  when  the  head  of 
the  family  has  been  struck  down;  they  do  not 
show  the  carelessness  or  greed  that  subjects 
men  to  the  danger  of  working  with  worn-out 
cranes,  or  defective  emery  wheels,  or  weak  belt- 
ing; but  they  do  show,  in  connection  with  the 
other  data  quoted,  in  a  cold  official  way,  that 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  in 
this  country  are  working  for  excessive  hours, 
amid  unsanitary  surroundings,  and  without 
proper  protection  from  the  dangers  of  their 
work:  judging  by  the  standard  which  for  the 
time  being  has  been  accepted  as  just. 

Such  conditions  are  hard  enough  for  grown 
men  and  women  to  face,  they  are  harder  still 

EPS] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  HEALTH 

for  children.  And  by  taking  children  away 
from  school  and  putting  them  at  work,  fre- 
quently beyond  their  capacity,  they  are  handi- 
capped mentally  and  physically  for  making 
enough  later  on  to  support  a  family.  The  percen- 
tage of  children  so  injured  cannot  be  definitely 
arrived  at,  but  they  are  employed  in  considera- 
ble numbers  in  a  large  variety  of  occupations. 
Sweatshops,  glass  factories,  the  making  of 
neckties,  cigars,  paper  and  wooden  boxes,  pic- 
ture frames,  furniture,  and  shoes  are  a  few  of 
the  widely  different  trades  that  take  their 
quota.  In  the  Southern  cotton  mills,  twelve 
appears  to  be  the  age  at  which  children  are  ordi- 
narily expected  to  begin  work ;  but  some  of  the 
mills  employ  children  under  that  age,  now  and 
then,  in  fact,  as  young  as  nine,  eight,  and  even 
six  years.^^ 

"Probably  the  most  serious  and  far-reaching 
effect  of  child-labor  is  the  prevention  of  normal 
development,  physical  and  mental.  Besides 
being  deprived  of  the  schooling  they  would 
otherwise  get,  children  are  injured  by  confine- 
ment and  sometimes  worn  out  by  work.  In  other 
cases  the  work  is  demoralizing  because  it  does 

21 L.  c,  pp.  45,  65,  83,  85,  86:  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab.,  *' Cotton  Textile 
Industry." 

cssn 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

not  call  out  the  best  faculties  of  the  children,  or 
leaves  them  altogether  idle  for  a  part  of  the 
year. 

"It  has  been  found  that  children  are  much 
more  liable  to  accidents  in  factories  than  adults. 
Thus  a  recent  report  of  the  Minnesota  Bureau 
of  Labor  shows  that  boys  under  sixteen  have 
twice  as  great  probability  of  accident  as  adults, 
while  girls  under  sixteen  have  thirty-three  [5/c] 
times  as  great  a  probability  of  being  hurt  as 
women  over  sixteen.  ...  It  has  also  been 
found  that  overstrain  of  the  muscular  or  ner- 
vous system  is  much  more  serious  in  children 
than  in  adults,  and  that  children  are  also  more 
susceptible  to  the  poisons  and  injurious  dusts 
arising  in  certain  processes  than  grown  per- 
sons." 22 

22 U.  S.  Industrial  Commission,  Vol.  XIX,  p.  917f ;  cf.  also  U.S. 
Bur.  Lab.,  "Cotton  Textile  Industry,'*  p.385f. 


194^1 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 

INDUSTRIAL   CONDITIONS:    MORALS 

INDUSTRIAL  conditions,  as  at  present 
constituted,  not  only  injure  the  health  of 
the  body;  they  also  endanger  the  soul.  The 
Chicago  Vice  Commission  has  thus  summar- 
ized these  influences:  "Among  the  economic 
conditions  contributory  to  the  social  evil  are 
low  wages,  unsanitary  conditions,  demoralizing 
relationships  in  stores,  shops,  domestic  service, 
restaurants  and  hotels:  the  street  vending  of 
children  in  selling  papers  and  gums,  collecting 
coupons  and  refuse;  the  messenger  service  of 
boys,  especially  in  the  vicinity  of  disorderly 
houses,  vicious  saloons,  dance  halls  and  other  de- 
moralizing resorts ;  employment  agencies  which 
send  servants  to  immoral  places ;  the  rest  rooms 
or  waiting  places  where  applicants  for  work  re- 
sort; too  long  hours  and  the  high  pressure  of 
work;  the  overcrowding  of  houses  upon  lots, 
and  of  persons  in  single  rooms"  (Report,  1911 : 
p.  230). 

When   inability   to   secure   decent   lodging 
forces  men  and  women  to  occupy  the  same 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

sleeping  rooms,  there  must  be  an  inevitable 
lowering  of  moral  standards.  One  case  is  re- 
corded in  "Packingtown,"  where  eight  persons 
—men  and  women— were  sleeping  in  a  room 
approximately  ten  by  fifteen  feet/  When  a 
woman  pays  less  than  $1.50  a  week  for  board 
and  lodging,  as  many  are  forced  to  do  (see 
page  71f )  she  can  have  no  privacy.  "If  there 
are  men  lodgers  in  the  house,  the  entrance 
to  their  room  is  sometimes  through  the  girl's 
room,  or  vice  versa.  In  one  house  visited,  the 
women  received  the  agent  about  nine  p.m.  in 
the  room  of  a  man  lodger  who  had  already  gone 
to  bed.  This  seemed  to  be  the  only  available 
sitting  room  and  disconcerted  no  one  save  the 
agent"  (I.e.,  p.  62). 

The  girl  who  lives  away  from  home  in  a 
cheap  boarding  house  is  no  myth.  In  Pitts- 
burgh, "in  the  garment  trades  she  numbers 
38%  of  the  total  force;  in  the  wholesale  milli- 
nery trade  10% ;  in  the  mercantile  houses  20%. 
On  the  lowest  estimate,  there  are  2300  of  her 
kind  in  Pittsburgh.'" 

It  is  not  only  low  wages,  as  leading  to  a  lack 

lU.   S.   Bur.   Lab.,    "Women  Wage-Earners    in  Stores  and 
Factories,"  p.  119. 
2E.  B.  Butler,  "Women  and  the  Trades,"  pp.  320-1. 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  MORALS 

of  decent  housing,  that  has  a  bad  moral  effect. 
All  are  born  with  a  natural  craving  for  happi- 
ness, and  long  hours  of  work  under  a  nervous 
strain  intensify  this  desire.  Economic  condi- 
tions have  kept  most  of  those  in  the  grip  of  such 
a  situation  from  developing  the  higher  side  of 
their  nature  until  they  can  find  pleasure  and 
recreation  in  a  symphony  concert  or  an  epic 
poem.  The  jaded  nerves  need  a  stronger  stim- 
ulus to  cause  pleasure.  "The  desire  for  ec- 
stasy," says  Algar  Thorold,  a  keen  psychologi- 
cal observer,  "is  at  the  very  root  and  heart  of 
our  nature.  This  craving,  when  bound  down 
by  the  animal  instincts,  meets  us  on  every  side 
in  those  hateful  contortions  of  the  social  organ- 
ism called  the  dram-shop  and  the  brothel."^ 
As  a  consequence  of  this  insatiable  longing 
for  pleasure  and  the  inability  to  pay  for  it, 
thousands  of  young  women  in  our  big  cities 
patronize  public  dance  halls  and  other  ques- 
tionable places  of  amusement.  The  code  of 
their  social  set  has  come  to  sanction  accepting 
tickets  for  such  places,  refreshments,  etc.,  from 
men  met  haphazard  at  these  resorts.* 

3  Preface  to  "Dialogue  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,**  p.  13:  Lon- 
don, Kegan  Paul,  1896. 

*  U.  S.  But.  Labor,  "Women  Wage-Earners  in  Stores  and  Fac- 
tories,'* p.  75. 

1:973 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

Dance  halls  are  such  a  serious  menace  to  pub- 
lic morals  that  legislation  has  become  neces- 
sary. Elizabeth,  Paterson,  Newark  and  Ho- 
boken,  New  Jersey,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  St. 
Louis,  Indianapolis,  Louisville,  Minneapolis, 
Seattle,  San  Francisco,  Kansas  City,  and  Cleve- 
land are  all  agitating  the  question  of  their  reg- 
ulation (Survey,  June  3, 1911,  p.  345) .  A.  B. 
Williams,  general  secretary  of  the  Humane 
Society  of  this  last  city,  is  quoted  as  declaring 
that  *'one  out  of  every  ten  children  in  Cleve- 
land is  born  out  of  wedlock.  In  nine  out  of 
every  ten  cases  that  we  handle,  the  mothers  tell 
us,  'I  met  him  at  a  public  dance' "  (1.  c,  p.  346) . 

In  Chicago  alone  there  are  about  306  li- 
censed dance  halls  and  nearly  100  unlicensed. 
Among  these,  "one  condition  is  general:  most 
of  the  dance  halls  exist  for  the  sale  of  liquor, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  dancing,  which  is  only 
of  secondary  importance.  A  saloon  opened 
into  each  of  190  halls,  and  liquor  was  sold  in 
240  out  of  328.  In  the  others— except  in  rare 
instances— return  checks  were  given  to  facili- 
tate the  use  of  neighboring  saloons.  At  the  halls 
where  liquor  was  sold  practically  all  the  boys 
showed  signs  of  intoxication  by  one  o'clock" 
(1.  c,  p.  385 :  Louise  de  Koven  Bowen) . 
1:98] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  MORALS 

And  just  as  women  who  have  toiled  hard  all 
day  long,  crave  some  strong  excitement  such 
as  can  only  be  afforded  by  the  dance  hall  or  a 
similar  place,  so  men  in  the  same  circumstances 
naturally  turn  to  the  saloon.  It  is  in  the  cheer- 
fully lighted,  comfortably  heated  gin-shop,  in 
the  temporary  stimulus  of  liquor,  that  insuffi- 
cient food,  unhealthful  surroundings  at  home 
and  at  work,  a  cold,  uninviting  house  are  for- 
gotten. It  is  often  said  that  workmen  would 
have  enough  to  live  on  comfortably  if  they  did 
not  squander  their  wages  in  drink,  and  that  to 
raise  their  pay  would  only  be  to  increase  the 
profits  of  saloon-keepers.  In  some  cases  this 
may  be  true.  But  in  the  vast  majority,  it  is 
probable  that  to  increase  their  power  of  getting 
the  comforts  at  home  that  they  find  in  the  sa- 
loon would  be  to  lessen  the  drink  evil,  rather 
than  increase  it.  The  marvel  is  not  that  labor- 
ers who  come  home  day  after  day  from  hard, 
long  toil  to  poor  food,  cold  rooms,  a  generally 
comfortless  home  should  seek  out  the  gin-pal- 
ace, but  that  they  drink  as  little  as  they  do. 

These  are  some  of  the  indirect,  though  im- 
portant, moral  results  of  economic  conditions. 
Oftentimes  the  direct  influences  of  a  person's 
occupation  also  make  for  evil.    The  messenger 

1:993 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

boy,  for  instance,  on  the  streets  at  all  hours  and 
in  all  sections,  can  hardly  fail  to  see  and  hear 
much  that  no  parent  would  want  a  child  of 
fourteen,  sixteen,  or  eighteen  to  know.  Indeed, 
a  great  part  of  his  employment  at  night  comes 
from  those  indulging  in  debauchery,  and  it  is 
his  most  profitable  source  of  tips.^ 

From  the  nature  of  the  case,  women  are 
probably  more  exposed  in  their  work  than  men. 
Such  occupations  as  will  occur  to  every  one, 
are  manicure  parlors  where  girls  are  peculiarly 
exposed  to  danger  and  insults.  But  most  im- 
portant, because  employing  the  largest  num- 
bers, are  the  department  stores.  It  has  been 
charged  over  and  over  again,  that  many  em- 
ployers knowingly  pay  wages  that  are  insuffi- 
cient to  support  a  girl  in  the  expectation  that 
she  will  be  subsidized  by  some  "gentleman 
friend." 

How  far  this  is  true  is  hard  to  say ;  and  it  is 
just  as  difficult  to  determine  how  many  depart- 
ment-store employees  are  really  immoral.  The 
report  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor 
on  "  Wage-Earning  Women  and   Children" 

5  Cf  Report  of  Chicago  Vice  Commission,  p.  242f,  and  unpub- 
lished reports  of  the  National  Child  Labor  Committee,  Washing- 
ton, D.  C. 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  MQB'ALS 

combats  the  idea  that  immorality  among  them 
is  widespread.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  strong 
opinion  that  store  girls  are  not  all  they  should 
be,  and  many  careful  observers  have  enumer- 
ated quite  a  startling  array  of  individual  in- 
stances where  a  girl's  fall  can  be  largely  traced 
to  her  employment  as  a  sales- woman. 

An  investigator  for  the  Chicago  Vice  Com- 
mission, for  instance,  gives  in  the  report  of  that 
body  quite  a  number  of  cases  which  are  said  to 
be  typical.  "Violet  works  in  a  department 
store,  salary  $5.00  per  week.  Was  seduced  and 
left  home.  Baby  died  and  she  soHcits  on  the 
side  to  support  herself.  .  .  .  Mag  18  years  old. 
Works  in  department  store.  Salary  $5.50  per 
week.  Tells  parents  she  receives  more.  Helps 
support  parents  and  'solicits'  at  dances  for 
spending  money.  Father  is  sickly.  .  .  .  Mar- 
cella  (X913) ,  alias  Tantine  (X904) .  Came  to 
(X905)  about  three  years  ago,  and  started  to 
work  in  the  (X916)  department  store.  One 
of  the  managers  insisted  on  taking  her  out, 
which  she  finally  had  to  do  *to  hold  her  job,'  as 
she  asserts"  (pp.  187, 195). 

Miss  Elizabeth  Butler,  investigating  for  the 
Pittsburgh  Survey,  reports  the  same  thing  in 

that  city.    **Vera  "  she  says,  "is  twenty 

Doi] 


.CGNSUMi;R^  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

years  old.  Four  years  ago  she  was  employed 
as  a  salesgirl  at  $3.50  a  week.  After  a  year  she 
left  for  another  store  where  she  was  employed 
as  a  cashier  at  a  salary  of  $10.00  a  week,  for 
making  concessions  to  her  employer.  After 
two  years  she  left  the  store  for  a  house  of  pros- 
titution. .  .  .  Jennie came  to  Pittsburgh 

from  Akron,  Ohio.  She  had  no  friends  in  the 
city  and  was  obliged  to  be  self-supporting.  She 
obtained  a  position  at  $6.00  a  week  as  a  sales- 
woman. After  five  months  in  the  store  she  con- 
sented to  be  kept  in  an  apartment  in  the  East 
End.  She  still  keeps  her  position  in  the  store. 
...  A  girl  whose  father  was  killed  by  an  elec- 
tric crane  was  the  only  one  of  the  family  old 
enough  to  work.  Forced  by  financial  needs  to 
accept  a  wage  fixed  by  custom  at  a  point  below 
her  own  cost  of  subsistence,  much  more  below 
the  cost  of  helping  to  maintain  a  family  of  de- 
pendents, she  drifted  into  occasional  prostitu- 
tion."^ 

These  are  only  particular  instances,  it  is  true, 
and  one  must  not  generalize  too  widely.  But 
there  is  undoubtedly  considerable  foundation 
for  the  charge  so  often  made  and  so  firmly 
fixed  in  the  public  mind.    And  if  many  of  the 

6  "Women  and  the  Trades,"  pp.  305-306,  348. 
[102] 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  MORALS 

girls  exposed  to  such  dangers  have  hitherto  re- 
mained pure,  we  must  thank  the  sterling  char- 
acters inherited  from  those  raised  under  differ- 
ent conditions,  not  conclude  that  the  system 
needs  no  improvement. 

All  these  and  certain  less  tangible  economic 
influences  making  for  evil  have  been  well  sum- 
marized by  the  Minneapolis  Vice  Commission. 
It  points  out  that  the  advent  of  great  nimibers 
of  young  girls  into  industry  has  produced  con- 
ditions that  lead  to  the  blasting  of  thousands 
of  lives  yearly.  "The  chance  for  the  making 
of  promiscuous  male  acquaintances,  the  close 
association  of  the  sexes  in  employment,  the  nec- 
essary contact  with  the  general  public,  the  new 
and  distorted  view  of  life  which  such  an  envi- 
ronment compels,  taken  with  the  low  wage 
scale  prevailing  in  so  many  callings  and  affect- 
ing so  many  individuals,  combine  to  create  a 
situation  that  must  inevitably  weaken  the 
moral  stamina  and  lead  to  the  undoing  of 
many.  The  fault  is  plainly  not  so  much  in  the 
individual ;  it  is  rather  the  results  of  the  indus- 
trial system.  The  remedy  lies  in  large  part  in 
the  reforming  of  the  system"  (Repoii:,  1911, 
p.  126). 

Some  of  the  remedies  suggested  by  this  com- 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

mission  are  higher  wages,  better  sanitary  con- 
ditions, and  "the  education  of  public  opinion  in 
this  field  to  the  point  where  it  will  demand  a 
living  wage  and  proper  working  conditions  and 
social  conditions  for  those  who  serve  them  in 
industry/^  "^ 

Nor  is  this  commission  alone  in  attributing 
a  great  moral  influence  to  economic  conditions 
and  in  looking  to  the  public  for  a  large  part  of 
the  remedy.  In  fact,  it  was  simply  following 
in  the  steps  of  the  New  York  and  Chicago  Vice 
Commissions.^  And  all  merely  voiced  a  wide- 
spread conviction  among  social  workers  and 
the  public  generally. 

"Are  flesh  and  blood  so  cheap,"  asks  the  Chi- 
cago Commission,  "mental  qualifications  so 
common,  and  honesty  of  so  little  value,  that  the 
manager  of  one  of  our  big  department  stores 
feels  justified  in  paying  a  high  school  girl,  who 
has  served  nearly  one  year  as  an  inspector  of 
sales,  the  beggarly  wage  of  $4.00  per  week? 
What  is  the  natural  result  of  such  an  industrial 
condition?  Dishonesty  and  immorality,  not 
from  choice,  but  necessity— in  order  to  live. 

■^Italics  added.     Cf.  pp.  114,  115,  126. 

sSurvey,  Apr.  15,  1911,  p.  99;  May  6,  1911,  p.  215. 

D04  3 


INDUSTRIAL  CONDITIONS:  MORALS 

We  can  forgive  the  human  frailty  that  yields 
to  temptation  under  such  conditions— but  we 
cannot  forgive  the  soulless  corporation,  which 
arrests  and  prosecutes  this  girl— a  first  offend- 
er—when she  takes  some  little  articles  for  per- 
sonal adornment.  .  .  .  Prostitution  demands 
youth  for  its  perpetration.  On  the  public  rests 
the  mighty  responsibility  of  seeing  to  it  that 
the  demand  is  not  supplied  through  the  break- 
ing down  of  the  early  education  of  the  yoimg 
girl  or  her  exploitation  in  the  business  world" 
(Report,  pp.  43-44). 

This  insistence  upon  the  public  as  being 
really  responsible  for  these  economic  and  moral 
conditions  is  significant.  For  the  Consumers 
are  the  public.  Each  individual  of  which  the 
public  is  composed  is,  in  one  aspect,  a  Con- 
sumer, and  it  is  important  to  notice  how  wide- 
spread is  an  insistence  upon  his  responsibility 
in  the  matter. 

From  this  discussion  it  may  be  reasonably 
concluded:  (1)  that  many  persons  in  many  in- 
dustries are  receiving  less  than  a  living  wage, 
in  the  present  acceptation  of  that  term;  (2) 
that  many  persons  are  being  injured  in  health 
and  limb  by  long  hours,  unsanitary  workshops, 
tios] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

and  improperly  guarded  machinery;  (3)  that 
the  conditions  of  work  often  tend  to  produce 
vice. 

The  treatment  has  been  largely  statistical. 
No  matter  how  thorough,  therefore,  it  is  sub- 
ject to  the  limitations  of  this  method.  Sissy 
Jupe  long  ago  called  statistics  "stutterings," 
and  newer  editions  of  Gradgrind  have  not  per- 
fected their  articulation.  Statistics  are  neces- 
sarily quantitative.  They  do  well  enough  for 
computing  rainfall,  or  something  of  the  sort, 
but  human  life  with  its  pleasures  and  pains,  its 
joys  and  tragedies,  refuses  to  be  labeled  and 
ticketed.  It  is  intangible  to  such  gross  systems 
of  classification. 

"All  the  world's  coarse  thumb 
And  finger  fail  to  plumb" 

the  depths  of  happiness  and  suffering  in  the 
least  of  human  creatures. 


D06] 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

WHAT  SHOULD  THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER  DO? 

THE  question  now  arises,  even  supposing 
the  conditions  are  bad  and  that  a  duty  of 
improving  them  rests  upon  the  Consuming 
Class;  what  is  the  individual  Consumer  bound 
to  do?  Making  all  due  allowances  for  the  fact 
that  we  have  assumed  what  is  a  just  or  unjust 
wage,  and  without  any  intention  of  forcing  this 
standard  upon  the  conscience  of  individuals, 
there  will  be  times  when  a  particular  Consumer 
is  convinced,  e.g.  that  those  employed  at  stores 
he  patronizes  are  not  being  paid  anything  like 
what  they  have  a  right  to  receive.  What  should 
he  do  ?  Does  any  obligation  devolve  upon  him ? 
In  answering  this  question,  the  general  prin- 
ciple must  be  kept  in  mind,  that  a  Consumer 
is  not  bound  to  act  under  a  disproportionately 
grave  inconvenience.  He  is  not  bound  to  sac- 
rifice considerable  personal  good  to  do  a  very 
little  good  to  the  laborers  making  the  articles 
he  buys ;  nor  is  he  obliged  to  put  himself  to  any 
DOT] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

inconvenience  if  no  good  whatever  is  going  to 
follow. 

But  if  he  can  conveniently  buy  goods  made 
under  just  conditions  rather  than  under  bad, 
and  the  price  is  no  higher,  then  he  is  bound  to 
do  so.  And  if  he  is  well  off  and  can  easily  af- 
ford to  pay  a  little  more  for  the  justly  made 
goods,  he  ought  to  buy  them,  provided  he  can 
be  reasonably  sure  that  the  increase  in  price  will 
go  to  maintain  good  working  conditions  and 
not  simply  to  swell  the  manufacturer's  profits. 

As  Father  Cuthbert,  a  Capuchin,  says,  not 
the  employers  only  are  responsible  for  the  op- 
pression of  workingmen,  "but  all  who  patron- 
ize such  labor  contribute  to  the  sin.  The  insa- 
tiable yearning  to  buy  cheap  without  any 
thought  as  to  how  cheapness  is  obtained,  this  is 
the  incentive  which  tempts  men  to  buy  cheap 
labor  and  to  imderpay  workmen.  Were  people 
in  general  not  willing  accomplices,  there  would 
be  no  sweating  system,  no  unfair  competition. 
The  sin  falls  not  on  the  few  [manufacturers] 
but  on  the  many  [patrons]  who  too  readily 
condone  the  sin  of  the  few  for  the  sake  of  the 
resultant  advantage  to  themselves.  They  pay 
half  a  penny  less  for  a  pound  of  sugar  or  a 
shilling  or  two  less  on  a  ton  of  coal :  what  does 

D08] 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

the  public  care  that  the  shop  assistant  or  the 
miner  is  unable  to  get  a  human  wage?"  ^ 

The  purely  individual  action  of  Consumers, 
however,  can  have  but  little  effect  for  good. 
For  only  comparatively  few  have  sufficiently 
developed  social  consciences  to  realize  the  de- 
sirability of  such  action ;  and  even  if  more  had, 
their  means  of  discovering  which  goods  are 
justly  made  are  so  limited  as  seriously  to  ham- 
per their  activity. 

The  remedy  for  this  difficulty  would  seem  to 
be  organization  among  Consumers.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  if  they  united  in  sufficient 
numbers  in  patronizing  only  those  shops  that 
maintained  good  working  conditions  their  ac- 
tion would  exert  considerable  pressure.  The 
labor  unions  have  shown  that  the  boycott  is  a 
powerful  weapon.  How  efficient  it  can  be,  may 
be  guessed  from  the  sums  spent  by  employers 
in  opposing  it.  Astute  business  men  do  not 
tilt  at  windmills,  and  if  they  have  fought  the 
legality  of  the  boycott  in  every  tribunal  in  the 
land,  including  the  Supreme  Court,  it  was  only 
because  they  realized  the  compelling  power  it 
placed  in  labor's  hands. 

1  Father  Cuthbert,  O.S.F.C,  "Catholic  Ideals  in  Social  Life," 
p.  211 :  N.  Y.,  1904. 

D093 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

But  some  greater  animus  than  pure  philan- 
thropy seems  necessary  to  make  Consumers 
band  together  in  this  way  on  a  large  enough 
scale.  They  need  the  class  spirit,  the  enthusi- 
asm of  industrial  warfare  afforded  by  the  trade 
unions.  For  though  an  organization  of  Con- 
sumers has  been  in  existence  now  for  more  than 
twenty  years,  it  is  forced  sorrowfully  to  admit 
that  the  good  accomplished  simply  through  the 
economic  pressure  of  its  members  has  been  but 
slight. 

But  if  it  had  been  possible  so  to  unite  Con- 
sumers in  a  powerful  society  for  the  collection 
of  information  and  the  distribution  of  patron- 
age, it  has  been  asked:  Would  it  not  have  be- 
come wofuUy  corrupt?  Can  we  safely  trust  an 
irresponsible  club  with  such  power?  And, 
therefore,  is  it  wise  for  conscientious  individu- 
als now  to  join  this  league?  For  either  it  will 
remain  practically  powerless,  or  else  it  will  be- 
come so  strong  as  to  be  a  menace. 

The  answer  must  be  that  if  the  Consumers' 
League  ever  does  become  strong  enough  to  ex- 
ercise a  great  influence  in  the  industrial  world, 
it  will  probably  abuse  and  sell  its  power.  Rich 
unfair  firms  may  be  able  to  bribe  those  in  con- 
trol to  give  them  a  recommendation  they  do  not 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

deserve,  and  various  other  kinds  of  corruption 
will  most  likely  creep  in.  But  such  an  argu- 
ment proves  too  much.  If  we  are  to  give  no 
authority  where  it  will  not  be  misused,  we  shall 
come  to  anarchy  at  once.  For  have  not  politi- 
cal parties,  and  states  and  employers  and  trade 
unions— all,  at  one  time  or  another,  abused 
power.  Seldom  have  men  enjoyed  power  for 
long  without  using  it  for  selfish  ends. 

But  we  must  not,  therefore,  destroy  all  au- 
thority and  power.  Rather  we  should  embrace 
the  dictimi  of  de  Maistre,  that  power  must  be 
balanced  against  power,  one  organization  set 
to  watch  another.  And  if  it  should  happen  that 
a  league  of  Consumers  became  too  strong  and 
abused  its  strength,  it  would  be  time  enough 
then  to  set  about  checking  it  by  building  up 
power  somewhere  else. 

So  far,  however,  there  has  been  no  danger  of 
such  a  contingency.  The  Consumers'  League 
has  been  active,  earnest,  and  honest— and  suffi- 
cient for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof.  The 
League  has  embraced  all  work  that  came  to 
hand  whether  strictly  within  the  economic  field 
first  marked  out  for  it,  or  extending  to  other 
preserves.  Its  activity  in  the  Legislative  do- 
main has  not  been  inconsiderable,  and  it  is  prob- 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

able  that  the  influence  of  Consumers  will  be 
most  marked  here  in  the  future. 

There  is  much  talk  now  of  minimum  wage 
legislation  to  guarantee  laborers  a  certain  stan- 
dard. If  we  look  upon  compulsory  arbitration 
as  practically  the  same  thing,  we  can  say  that 
it  has  already  been  extensively  tried.  Canada, 
England,  Australia,  and  New  Zealand  have 
shown  that  it  is  possible  in  some  fields  but  the 
controversy  always  aroused  by  a  new  project 
has  not  yet  subsided  sufficiently  to  enable  one 
to  speak  definitely  concerning  its  success.  The 
elaborate  system  of  state  insurance  against 
sickness,  accident,  old  age,  and  unemployment, 
now  in  operation  in  England  and  Germany  is 
another  governmental  attempt  to  secure  a  cer- 
tain standard  of  living  for  all.  And  the  public- 
schools,  in  which  rich  and  poor  are  put  on  a 
plane  of  equality  regarding  elementary  educa- 
tion, are  so  familiar  that  we  are  apt  to  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  they  are  really  only  one  link  in 
this  chain  of  state  intervention  to  provide  the 
means  for  everybody  enjoying  certain  advan- 
tages that  have  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  ne- 
cessities in  our  civilization. 

In  our  own  country  during  1911,  there  was 
much  discussion,  some  action,  and  every  pros- 

[112] 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

pect  for  still  further  activity  along  these  lines. 
A  conspicuous  feature  was  the  movement  to  in- 
troduce a  more  equitable  system  of  compensa- 
tion or  insurance  for  industrial  accidents.^ 
There  was  a  non-compulsory  minimum  wage 
law  passed  recently  in  Massachusetts,  and 
several  States  prescribed  the  rate  of  pay  for 
public  work  done  by  contract.  An  amendment 
to  the  Charter  of  San  Francisco  fixes  the  mini- 
mum of  employees  on  street  railways  at  $3.00 
per  day,  with  one  and  one-half  pay  for  over- 
time. Vermont,  Wisconsin  and  South  Dakota 
have  given  wages  a  preference  over  other  debts 
(1.  c,  pp.  876,  878,  881). 

It  would  seem  then  that  the  legislative  field 
is  the  one  in  which  most  success  is  to  be  ex- 
pected. And  since  the  Consumers  are  the  bene- 
ficiaries of  labor's  exertion,  they  are  especially 
bound  to  effort  in  this  direction.  Those  who 
have  influence  and  leisure  are  more  bound  than 
those  who  have  but  little  power  or  opportunity, 
but  all  are  obliged  to  do  something. 

The  results  of  our  examination  of  this  ques- 
tion may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  con- 
clusion : 

I.  Assuming  that  employers  are  violating 

2  Bulletin  of  U.  S.  Bur.  of  Lab.,  Jan.  1,  1911,  p.  869. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

the  rights  of  their  laborers  then  there  is  a  duty 
incumbent  upon  the  Consuming  Class  to  do 
what  they  can  to  secure  these  rights. 

II.  Employers  are  violating  the  rights  of 
their  employees  to  such  an  extent  as  to  create 
a  serious  social  problem. 

III.  The  individual  Consumer  is  bound  to 
do  what  he  can  without  serious  inconvenience  to 
remedy  these  conditions.  He  can  act  individu- 
ally, by  joining  an  organization,  and  through 
legislation. 

Should  it  be  asked  which  is  the  most  effective 
way,  the  answer  would  certainly  incline  towards 
legislation.  If  we  survey  the  industrial  history 
of  the  last  quarter  century,  we  can  see  gain  after 
gain  by  this  method;^  while  the  Consumers' 
League,  in  its  strict  capacity  of  an  organization 
of  purchasers  has  done  but  little.  What  it  has 
accomplished  has  been  largely  through  the  ad- 
vocacy of  legislation,  rather  than  by  merely 
economic  pressure.  And  so,  while  Consumers 
could  doubtless  effect  tremendous  changes  if 
they  wished,  it  seems  impossible  to  get  them  to 
co-operate  in  sufficient  numbers. 

^Cf.  Mrs.  Florence  Kelly,  *'Some  Ethical  Gains  through  Legis- 
lation," N.  Y.,  Macmillan,  1905  ;  Bulletins  of  U.  S.  Bur.  Lab. 
giving  resum^  of  labor  legislation. 

1:1143 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

Nevertheless,  the  Consumers'  League  is 
founded  on  a  great  and  noble  principle,  and  for 
the  moment  I  want  to  put  aside  the  judicial  at- 
titude and  enthusiastically  chronicle  what  it  has 
done,  and  what  could  be  done  along  the  same 
lines.  The  Consumers'  League  is  unique  in  the 
field  of  philanthropy  as  affording  an  oppor- 
tunity to  everyone  no  matter  how  big  or  how 
little.  For  by  its  original  principle  of  buying 
only  goods  made  under  fair  conditions,  it  gives 
a  chance  to  the  unimportant  individual  to  share 
in  a  great  philanthropic  movement,  somewhat 
as  a  private  does  in  an  imperial  army;  and  by 
its  activity  in  the  legislative  field,  it  opens  up 
an  opportunity  for  those  who  have  the  time, 
and  talent,  and  position  necessary  for  effec- 
tiveness there. 

And  whether  or  not  we  look  upon  the  dic- 
tates of  charity  and  justice  as  clearly  indicating 
a  duty,  whether  or  not  one's  "moral  resonance" 
responds  to  what  has  been  said,  surely  we  can- 
not deny  that  here  is  a  splendid  opportunity. 
Here  is  a  practical  way  for  each  and  everyone 
to  play  the  Good  Samaritan.  Not  all  of  us 
can  meet  men  along  a  road  who  have  been  set 
upon  by  thieves,  bundle  them  into  an  automo- 
bile, and  carry  them  to  a  hospital.    We  cannot 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

all  give  thousands  in  charity.  We  cannot  all 
engage  in  publicly  urging  reforms  by  legisla- 
tion, nor  give  generously  of  time  in  philan- 
thropic ministration  to  the  poor.  But  we  can 
see  to  it  in  the  way  already  outlined  that  some 
at  least  of  our  expenditures  go  to  ward  off  mis- 
ery rather  than  foster  it.  We  can  see  to  it  that 
we  prevent  misery  from  spreading  at  least  in 
one  little  sphere. 

^  This  is  no  mere  theory.  Reforms  have  actu- 
ally been  accomplished  in  some  places  by  the 
Consumers'  League.  Realizing  that  to  be  effec- 
tive they  must  be  organized,  it  is  the  object  of 
members  of  this  League  to  act  as  a  sort  of  in- 
verted megaphone  gathering  up  the  weak  whis- 
perings of  each  individual  purchaser  and  blend- 
ing them  with  thousands  of  others  until  they  all 
become  one  mighty  concerted  shout  that  must 
be  heard. 

Laborers  have  known  the  strength  of  com- 
bination in  fighting  industrial  conditions  for 
more  than  a  generation;  the  aggregations  of 
capital  have  been  growing  larger  and  larger; 
why  should  not  the  most  powerful  of  all  the 

*  The  next  few  pages  appeared  substantially  as  here  given  in 
The  Month,  March,  1911,  under  the  title  *'The  Consumer's  Oppor- 
tunity." The  author  thanks  the  editor  of  this  magazine  for  kind 
permission  to  reproduce  this  matter. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

elements  of  industrial  society,  the  Consumer 
himself,  learn  by  their  experience  ? 

Organized  in  1891  in  New  York  City,  the 
Consumers'  League  now  has  almost  a  hundred 
branches  in  eighteen  of  the  United  States,  in 
France,  Switzerland,  Germany,  and  Belgium. 
To  Mrs.  Josephine  Shaw  Lowell  is  due  the 
credit  of  its  inception.  An  investigation  dur- 
ing 1889-90  into  the  conditions  of  work  among 
sales-women  and  cash-children,  which  she  di- 
rected for  the  Working  Women's  Society, 
forced  upon  her  the  futility  of  starting  reform 
from  the  producing  end.  The  competitive  sys- 
tem of  industry  ties  the  hands  of  the  employer, 
while  it  seems  impossible  successfully  to  organ- 
ize a  union  among  women.  There  was  but  one 
element  of  the  economic  world  left  to  work  with 
—the  Consumer. 

Therefore,  in  May,  1890,  a  public  meeting 
was  called  in  Chickering  Hall,  New  York,  to 
discuss  the  organization  of  this  all-powerful 
factor  of  industry.  It  was  decided  to  found  the 
Consumers'  League  upon  the  following  plat- 
form: 

"I.  That  the  interest  of  the  community  de- 
mands that  all  workers  should  receive,  not  "the 
lowest,  but  fair  living  wages. 
CUT] 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

"II.  That  the  responsibiUty  for  some  of  the 
worst  evils  from  which  wage-earners  suffer, 
rests  with  the  Consumers,  who  persist  in  buy- 
ing in  the  cheapest  markets,  regardless  of  how 
cheapness  is  brought  about. 

"III.  That  it  is  therefore,  the  duty  of  Con- 
sumers to  find  out  under  what  conditions  the 
articles  they  purchased  are  produced,  and  to 
insist  that  these  conditions  shall  be,  at  least, 
decent  and  consistent  with  a  respectable  exist- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  workers. 

"IV.  That  this  duty  is  especially  incumbent 
upon  Consumers  in  relation  to  the  product  of 
women's  work  since  there  is  no  limit  beyond 
which  the  wages  of  women  may  be  pressed 
down,  unless  artificially  maintained  at  a  living 
rate  by  combinations,  either  of  the  workers 
themselves  or  of  the  Consumers.^ 

The  first  step  taken  to  carry  out  these  ob- 
jects was  to  prepare  a  "white  list"  of  stores 
coming  up  to  a  certain  standard.  Since  it  is 
illegal  to  boycott,  or  to  urge  persons  not  to  deal 
with  stores  placed  on  a  "Black  List,"  the  Con- 
sumers' League  accomplishes  the  same  results 

5  "Historical  Sketch  of  the  Pioneer  Consumers'  League,"  p. 
ii.  Consumers'  League  of  New  York  City,  1908.  For  further  in- 
formation address  Mr.  V.  P.  Kellogg,  105  E.  22nd  St.,  New  York 
City. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

by  persuading  persons  to  buy  from  firms  on  a 
white  list.  Once  published,  merchants  feel  the 
effects  of  such  a  list,  and,  to  get  the  patronage 
of  the  League,  volunteer  all  the  good  points 
about  themselves,  not  to  mention  the  bad  ones 
about  their  competitors.  The  list  itself  thus 
becomes  an  invaluable  means  of  getting  infor- 
mation not  otherwise  obtainable. 

Necessarily  this  list  had  to  be  somewhat  elas- 
tic and  considerably  below  the  ideal.  The  peo- 
ple at  the  head  of  the  Consumers'  League  were 
practical  persons  of  wide  experience  and  they 
went  on  the  principle  that  half  a  loaf  is  better 
than  none  at  all— that  every  little  bit  helps. 
After  consultations  with  the  employers  and  the 
Working  Women's  Society,  a  standard  was 
adopted  from  which  no  retreat  has  been  made. 
Whatever  changes  have  been  made,  have  been 
on  the  side  of  greater  strictness.  To-day  it 
stands  as  follows : 

Wages 

A  Fair  House  is  one  in  which  equal  pay  is 
given  for  work  of  equal  value,  irrespective  of 
sex,  and  in  which  no  sales-woman  who  is  eigh- 
teen years  or  over— and  who  has  had  one  year's 
C1193 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

experience  as  sales-woman  receives  less  than 
six  dollars  a  week. 

In  which  wages  are  paid  by  the  week. 

In  which  the  minimum  wages  for  cash-chil- 
dren are  three  dollars  and  a  half  per  week,  with 
the  same  conditions  regarding  weekly  pay- 
ments. 

Hours 

A  Fair  House  is  one  in  which  the  number  of 
working  hours  constituting  a  normal  working 
day  does  not  exceed  nine.  At  least  three-quar- 
ters of  an  hour  is  given  for  luncheon.  A  gen- 
eral half -holiday  is  given  on  one  day  of  each 
week  during  at  least  two  summer  months. 

A  Vacation  of  not  less  than  one  week  is  given 
with  pay  during  the  summer  season. 

All  overtime  is  compensated  for. 

Wages  are  paid,  and  the  premises  closed  for 
the  seven  principal  legal  holidays,  viz..  Thanks- 
giving Day,  Christmas  and  New  Year's  Day, 
Washington's  Birthday,  the  Fourth  of  July, 
Decoration  Day,  and  Labor  Day. 

Physical  Conditions 

A  Fair  House  is  one  in  which  work,  lunch 
and  retiring  rooms  are  apart  from  each  other, 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

and  conform  in  all  respects  to  the  present  Sani- 
tary Laws. 

In  which  the  present  law  regarding  the  pro- 
viding of  seats  for  sales-women  is  observed,  and 
the  use  of  seats  permitted. 

Other  Conditions 

A  Fair  House  is  one  in  which  humane  and 
considerate  behavior  towards  the  employees  is 
the  rule. 

In  which  fidelity  and  length  of  service  meet 
with  the  consideration  which  is  their  due. 

In  which  no  children  under  fourteen  years  of 
age  are  employed. 

In  which  no  child  under  the  age  of  sixteen 
years  works  for  more  than  nine  hours  a  day. 

In  which  no  child  works,  unless  an  employ- 
ment certificate  issued  by  the  Board  of  Health 
has  been  first  filed  with  the  employer,  and  the 
name,  etc.,  of  the  child  has  been  entered  on  a 
register  kept  by  the  employer. 

In  which  the  ordinances  of  the  city  and  the 
laws  of  the  State  are  obeyed  in  all  particulars. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  in  1891  only  eight 
store  sin  New  York  were  eligible  for  the  standard 
(then  less  strict),  while  to-day  there  are  more 
1:1213 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

than  fifty;  that  then  overtime  was  never  paid 
for,  and  fines  often  reduced  the  pay  to  almost 
half,  while  to-day  fines  go  to  a  benefit  fund, 
and  overtime  is  paid  for,  or  a  corresponding 
time  off  is  given;  that  then  the  child-labor  law 
was  openly  violated,  and  many  grown  women 
received  less  than  four  doUars-and-a-half, 
sometimes  less  than  two  dollars,  a  week,  while 
the  standard  now  is  six ;  that  the  chair  law,  pro- 
viding one  seat  for  every  three  girls,  was  dis- 
regarded, or  the  girls  never  allowed  to  use 
them,  while  to-day  inspectors  of  the  State  La- 
bor Bureau  strictly  enforce  its  regulations ;  that 
the  year  after  the  influence  of  the  Consumers' 
League  passed  the  Mercantile  Employers'  Bill 
providing  for  the  essentials  of  the  above  stan- 
dard, there  were  twelve  hundred  infractions  re- 
ported, and  nine  hundred  under-age  children 
released  from  drudgery  as  shipping  clerks,  etc. : 
when  this  advance  towards  a  decent  standard 
of  living,  and  the  considerable  part  of  the  Con- 
sumers' League  in  bringing  it  about,  is  kept  in 
mind,  the  power  of  the  purchaser  is  seen  to  be 
no  day-dream  of  an  idealist,  no  mere  pretty  the- 
ory of  an  arm  chair  economist. 

As  one  reform  after  another  was  accom- 
plished, the  League  turned  itself  to  new  labors. 
1:1223 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

To-day  it  is  agitating  strongly  against  the 
cruelties  of  such  seasons  as  Christmas,  that 
should  mean  peace  and  joy  to  all.  "Glad  tid- 
ings of  great  joy"  sounds  like  a  hollow  mock- 
ery to  the  sales-women  and  children  who  work 
from  eight  in  the  morning  until  midnight. 
Therefore  the  League  sends  out  thousands  of 
post-cards,  and  advertises  in  newspapers,  mag- 
azines, and  street-cars,  urging  persons  to  shop 
early  out  of  consideration  for  the  employees  of 
stores.  The  first  large  success  from  this  move- 
ment came  in  1910  when  the  leading  depart- 
ment stores  of  Philadelphia,  employing  35,000 
persons,  decided  to  close  at  six  o'clock  during 
the  entire  Christmas  season.  Late  on  the  even- 
ing of  December  1,  the  head  of  one  of  the  larg- 
est retail  firms  in  the  city  called  up  the  Con- 
sumers' League  to  say  that  he  had  good  news. 
"I  thought  that  you  should  certainly  be  the  first 
to  hear  that  we  are  going  to  close  early,"  he 
said.  "I  congratulate  you  and  the  women  you 
represent  on  what  you  have  enabled  us  to  do."  ^ 
All  this  activity,  however,  is  concerned  with 
the  retailer ;  in  the  meantime  manufacture  was 
not  neglected.  The  League  early  saw  the  evils 
prevailing  in  many  factories,  and  therefore  de- 

«Cf.  The  Survey,  Dec.  17,  1910. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

cided  to  carry  the  white-list  idea  under  a 
slightly  different  form  into  this  field.  After  a 
thorough  investigation  by  its  own  representa- 
tives and  consultation  with  the  State  factory 
inspectors,  the  League,  where  the  situation  is 
satisfactory,  allows  the  use  of  its  label  guaran- 
teeing that  the  goods  are  made  under  clean  and 
healthful  surroundings.  The  conditions  under 
which  the  label  is  issued  are : 

1.  The  State  factory  law  is  obeyed. 

2.  No  children  under  the  age  of  sixteen  are 
employed. 

3.  Work  at  night  is  not  required,  and  the 
working  day  does  not  exceed  ten  hours. 

4.  No  goods  are  given  out  to  be  made  away 
from  the  factory. 

Similar  to  the  Consumers'  League  label  are 
the  labels  of  various  trade  unions.  These  lat- 
ter, indeed,  were  in  the  field  many  years  before 
the  Consumers'  League  was  even  organized. 
They  are  based  upon  exactly  the  same  princi- 
ple. When  a  factory  maintains  the  conditions 
demanded  by  the  union,  it  is  allowed  to  use  the 
label  on  its  goods.  Anyone,  therefore,  who 
buys  union-made  goods  at  a  store  where  the 
employees  are  protected  by  the  retail-clerks 
union  can  be  sure  that  those  engaged  in  both 
D24] 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

the  production  and  distribution  of  these  arti- 
cles have  obtained  their  just  rights  so  far  as 
this  is  possible. 

By  having  firms  on  the  white  list  handle  la- 
beled goods  and,  recently,  by  establishing  a 
store  of  its  own  in  New  York,  a  market  is  cre- 
ated for  them  among  the  members  of  the 
League.  The  practicalness  underlying  the 
whole  management  of  the  League  is  very 
clearly  shown  here  both  in  the  dove-tailing  of 
its  activities  in  manufacture  and  distribution 
and  in  the  appeal  made  to  the  self-interest  of 
purchasers  to  buy  white  goods,  wrappers,  etc., 
made  in  clean  factories  rather  than  germ-carry- 
ing sweatshops  goods.  It  has  been  the  aim  of 
the  League  all  along  to  make  it  to  the  Consum- 
er's personal  advantage  to  buy  labeled  goods 
at  white-list  stores.  The  idea  is  to  give  him  a 
better  article  and  better  service  for  the  same 
money,  the  increased  cost  to  the  manufacturer 
and  retailer  to  come  out  of  the  increased  sales. 

In  1898  the  various  local  Leagues  that  had 
sprung  up  in  different  sections  were  united  into 
one  national  organization  and  the  activities  be- 
came even  more  important.  The  sweatshop, 
child-labor,  excessive  hours  for  women,  were 
attacked  with  considerable  effect.     In  many 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

States  the  public  conscience  was  sufficiently 
aroused  by  reform  agencies  with  which  the 
League  zealously  co-operated  to  pass  stringent 
laws,  and  the  League's  representatives,  either 
as  private  individuals  or  as  honorary  inspectors 
of  the  State  tried  to  see  that  they  were  carried 
out.  If  New  York  to-day  has  the  strictest  child- 
labor  law  in  the  United  States,  a  good  share 
of  the  honor  is  due  to  the  untiring  labors  of  an 
enlightened  Consumers'  League. 

Here  one  concrete  instance  of  these  activities 
must  suffice.  England  had  as  early  as  1844 
enacted  laws  protecting  women,  but,  owing  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  various 
State  Supreme  Courts  had  held  that  any  re- 
striction of  the  right  of  free  contract  of  adult 
women  was  unconstitutional.  Therefore  when 
the.  State  of  Oregon  proceeded  against  a  laun- 
dryman  for  violation  of  a  State  Law  by  work- 
ing women  longer  than  allowed  by  that  Law, 
the  laundryman  promptly  appealed  from  the 
State  Court  to  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court.  The  local  Consumers'  League  there- 
upon notified  the  National  League,  with  head- 
quarters in  New  York  City,  that  information 
concerning  the  effect  of  work  upon  women  was 
necessary  to  win  the  case  before  the  highest 
D26] 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

tribunal  of  the  United  States.  Expert  counsel 
was  obtained,  and  Miss  Josephine  Goldmark, 
of  the  League,  was  detailed  to  collect  the  infor- 
mation. She  employed  ten  readers,  some  of 
them  medical  students,  and  special  privileges 
were  granted  her  at  Columbia  University  Li- 
brary, the  Astor  Library  of  New  York  City, 
and  the  Library  of  Congress  in  Washington. 
The  result  was  a  sweeping  verdict  sustaining 
the  State. 

There  are  two  great  classes  of  the  poor— those 
who  for  some  reason  or  other  do  not  work,  and 
those  who,  while  working,  do  not  receive  enough 
to  support  themselves  and  their  families.  To 
the  former  the  Church  has  been  a  staunch 
friend.  It  is  one  of  her  glories  that  her  enemies 
accuse  her  of  fostering  pauperism  by  too  lav- 
ish charity.  Her  hospitals  and  orphanages,  her 
homes  for  the  fallen  and  aged,  her  refuges  for 
the  sick  of  soul  and  body  are  dotted  over  the 
whole  land,  and  are  administered  with  a  devo- 
tion and  self-sacrificing  heroism  compelling  the 
admiration  of  all.  As  John  Boyle  O'Reilly 
said,  hers  is  not 

"Organized  charity  scrimped  and  iced 
In  the  name  of  a  cautious,  statistical  Christ." 
[127  3 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

But  what  are  we  doing  for  that  other  great 
class  of  poor,  those  who  work  but  do  not  re- 
ceive a  just  compensation?  What  are  we  doing 
in  the  way  of  preventive  philanthropy,  to  keep 
these  men  from  becoming  utterly  destitute  ?  It 
is  for  the  sublime  struggle  of  the  underpaid 
workman  that  our  sympathies  need  now  to  be 
aroused.  No  Crusader  ever  fought  for  the  Sep- 
ulcher  with  more  heroism  than  many  a  poverty- 
stricken  l?iborer  to  support  himself  and  family. 
Day  after  day  he  takes  up  the  hopeless  task, 
while  nearer  and  nearer  yawns  the  slough  of 
pauperism  where  four  million  human  beings 
who  were  once  self-respecting  workmen  like 
himself,  now  crawl  in  lethargic  content."^  No 
waving  pennons  and  blare  of  trumpets,  but  a 
factory  whistle  at  6  a.m.  and  a  chimney  puffing 
black  smoke  summon  him  to  battle  with  powers 
stronger  than  Saladin  in  his  might.  What 
Robert  Southwell  wrote  of  himself  during  im- 
prisonment might  to-day  be  applied  to  millions 
of  wage-slaves : 

"I  live,  but  such  a  life  as  ever  dies, 

I  die,  but  such  a  death  as  never  ends; 
My  death  to  end  my  dying  life  denies. 

And  life  my  living  death  no  whit  amends." 

■^Cf.  Hunter,  "Poverty,"  New  York,  1906. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

Yet  notwithstanding  the  workman's  ahnost 
superhuman  efforts  to  avoid  pauperism,  once 
he  reaches  that  abyss  he  loses  all  desire  to  rise 
from  it.  You  cannot  drive  him  back  into  that 
industrial  war  which  is  daily  crushing  better 
and  stronger  natures. 

Such  being  the  situation,  is  it  not  an  inspira- 
tion to  the  Consimier  who  longs  to  do  some- 
thing for  humanity  to  feel  that  he  is  contribu- 
ting his  mite  to  keep  some  workmen  from  be- 
coming paupers  ?  There  are  persons,  I  know,  to 
whom  their  utter  helplessness  in  the  face  of  all 
the  social  evils  oppressing  us  to-day,  has  been 
the  keenest  suffering.  To  them  this  doctrine 
of  the  responsibility  of  Consumers  and  the 
plans  of  fulfilling  it  have  come  as  a  gospel  of 
good  news.  They  have  felt  that  they  could 
now  find  rest  from  their  tortures  of  conscience : 
they  have  felt  that  they  could  now  have  a  pur- 
pose in  life  worth  living  for. 

And  what  if  in  our  sober  moments  we  must 
admit,  that  the  good  we  individually  accom- 
plish as  regards  the  workman  be  small?  What 
if  we  are  tempted  to  look  upon  it  as  useless? 
Let  us  take  courage  from  the  fact  that  we  are 
members  of  an  organization,  that  everything 
that  the  group  accomplishes  is  in  some  way  at- 
tributable to  us.  One  hundred  men  associated 
D293 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

together  can  accomplish  much  more  than  those 
same  men  working  separately  for  the  same 
ends.  This  fact  is  evident  in  the  case  of  a  re- 
ligious community.  If  the  members  of  these 
communities  were  scattered  as  individuals  over 
the  earth,  how  paltry  would  be  the  results  of 
all  their  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  compared 
with  what  it  is  to-day.  And  so  each  individual 
Consumer,  banded  with  others  in  an  organiza- 
tion, can  feel  that  all  the  work  of  the  whole 
body  is  to  some  extent  his.  His  powers  of  do- 
ing good  are  multiplied,  and  the  mere  fact  of 
his  association  with  others  multiplies  their  ca- 
pacities too. 

But  even  if  this  were  not  so,  the  mere  fact 
of  realizing  this  principle  and  co-operating 
with  other  noble-minded  persons  in  its  fulfill- 
ment will  be  an  immense  gain  to  ourselves  and 
will  finally  result  in  unexpected  good  to  soci- 
ety. Simply  to  know  that  we  are  accomplish- 
ing some  little  mite  in  the  field  of  preventive 
philanthropy  will  be  an  inspiration  in  our  lives. 

To  ask  ourselves,  not  whether  a  hat  be  ex- 
actly the  latest  style,  not  whether  it  be  abso- 
lutely the  cheapest  we  can  get,  but  how  it  was 
made,  what  effect  is  our  buying  it  going  to 
have  upon  the  workers  and  society  in  general, 
Ciso] 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSUMER 

will  beget  an  invaluable  spirit  of  self-efface- 
ment. A  social  conscience  will  be  generated 
and  grow  until  it  becomes  a  dominant  note  in 
our  lives.  And  from  us  this  gospel  of  charity 
and  justice,  this  good  news  to  men  of  good  will, 
will  spread  until  it  becomes  a  mighty  force  for 
social  amelioration. 

We  have  passed  through  ages  of  autocratic 
tyranny;  the  individualistic  democracy  of  the 
last  century  is  waning ;  there  is  approaching  an 
era  of  social  effort,  social  morality,  a  recogni- 
tion of  social  interdependence.  "The  quick  and 
sensitive  ear,"  to  quote  Miss  Scudder,  "hears 
the  beat  of  a  new  music,  to  which  men  begin  to 
rally.^  It  is  a  concerted  harmony,  no  mere  soli- 
tary bugle  call ;  and  those  who  march  to  it  are 
more  or  less  consciously  swayed  by  a  new 
rhythm.  For  it  is  notable  that  the  rhythms  of 
life  are  coming  more  and  more  to  connote  har- 
mony rather  than  melody,  or  rather  to  weave 
many  melodic  phrasings  into  one  complex 
whole.  Association— or  to  use  the  fairer  word, 
fellowship— becomes  a  term  of  increasing  mod- 
ern cogency." 

What  matter,  that  to  any  but  the  superficial 
observer,  the  situation  looks  dark.    It  may  be 

8  Hibbert  Journal,  Apr.,  1909. 


CONSUMERS  AND  WAGE-EARNERS 

that  the  more  we  study  it,  the  blacker  it  grows. 
As  we  look  back  upon  the  history  of  man's 
strivings  for  some  better  social  organization, 
the  conflict  may  seem  hopeless.  We  may  be 
tempted  to  reflect  with  William  Morris,  ''How 
men  fight  and  lose  the  battle,  and  the  thing 
they  fought  for  comes  about  in  spite  of  their 
defeat,  and  when  it  comes  it  turns  out  not  to  be 
what  they  meant,  and  other  men  have  to  fight 
for  what  they  meant  under  another  name." 
But  it  is  nobler  to  say  with  Mrs.  Browning : 

"We  will  trust  God.  The  blank  interstices 
Men  take  for  ruins.  He  will  build  into 

With  pillared  marbles  rare,  or  knit  across 
With  generous  arches,  till  the  fane's  complete. 

This  world  has  no  perdition  if  some  loss." 


D32  3 


APPENDIX 

1  Constans  et  perpetua  roluntas  jus  sumn  unicuique 
tribuendi;  voluntaria  laesio  et  violatio  juris  alieni: 
De  Lugo,  De  just,  et  jure,  Disp.  VIII,  Sec.  I,  n.  1. 

2  Debitum  rationale  ex  necessaria  connectione  medi- 
orum  cum  fine  necessario  resultans:  Theologia  mo- 
ralis  fundamentalis,  ed.  2a,  Bruges,  1890,  p.  188. 

3  "Quoties  aequalitas  non  servatur  ut  venditor  ultra  su- 
premum  pretium,  vel  emptor  emat  infra  infimum  .  .  . 
injustitia  commititur.'*    L.  c,  Tr.  VII,  n.  380. 

4  In  hac  re  cooperator  est,  qui  simul  cum  alio  est  causa 
damni,  sive  immediata  sive  positiva  sive  negativa. 
Non  enim  in  omnibus  eadem  est  ratio  cooperationis, 
sed  hoc  est  omnibus  commune,  quod  cum  alio  concur- 
rant  ad  damnum  sen  injuriam  damnosam. 
Ballerini  L.  c,  Tr.  VII,  n.  128:  cf.  De  Lugo,  L.  c. 
XVII,  II,  37. 

5  Praeferendum  est  enim  commune  bonum  privato. 
Pt.  I,  Tr.  Ill,  Tom.  IX,  Sec.  IV,  p.  1171. 

6  Cum  enim  unus  homo  sit  pars  multitudinis,  quilibet 
homo  hoc  ipsum  quod  est,  et  quod  habet,  est  sicut  et 
quaelibet  pars  id  quod  est,  est  totius ;  unde  et  natura 
aliquod  detrimentum  infert  parti,  ut  sal  vet  totum :  2a 
2ae,  Q.96,  A.4. 

11332 


APPENDIX 

7  Haec  potestas  est  necessaria  ad  bonam  rei  publicae 
humanae  gubernationem. 

Op.  cit.,  Pt.  I,  Tom.  V,  Lib.  Ill,  Cap.  21. 

8  Ex  damno  et  periculo,  quod  bono  publico  publicaeque 
securitati  inferretur  si  impune  id  agere  liceret. 
Theol.  Mor.,  Pt.  I,  Lib.  I,  Div.  II,  Par.  4,  n.  761. 

9  Tota  difficultas  consistit  in  assignanda  ratione  hujus 
veritatis:  nam  licet  turpitudo  haec  statim  appareat, 
non  tamen  facile  est  ejus  fundamentum  invenire: 
unde  (quod  in  aliis  multis  quaestionibus  contingit) 
magis  certa  est  conclusio,  quam  rationes,  quae  variae 
a  diversis  afferuntur  ad  ejus  probationem.  De  Just, 
et  Jure,  Disp.  X,  Sec.  I,  Num.  2. 

10  Fatendum  est  esse  aliquas  practicas  vertitates  humano 
convictui  necessarias,  quas  homines  instinctu  quodam 
rationali  percipiunt  et  sentiunt,  quarum  tamen  ra- 
tionem  prorsus  demonstrativam,  cum  cam  iidem  ana- 
lytice  quaerunt,  difficulter  inveniunt.  Videtur  voluisse 
natura  sive  auctor  naturae  hujusmodi  instinctu  aut 
sensu  rationali  supplere  defectum  rationis  seexercentis: 
.  .  .  Inter  hujusmodi  veritates  haec  quoque  forte, 
qua  de  agimus,  invenitur.  Theologia  Moralis,  Tr. 
VI,  Sec.  VI,  Num.  119,  Vol.  II,  pp.  727-728. 


[134] 


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Minneapolis  Vice  Commission,  Report,  19II. 
Chicago  Vice  Commission,  Report,  I9II. 
Seligman,  E.  R.  A.,  The  Social  Evil,  N.  Y.,  1912. 
United   States   Bureau  of   Labor,    Industrial   Hygiene, 

19O8. 

ClSS] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Kelly,  Florence,  Some  Ethical  Gains  through  Legislation, 
N.  Y.,  1905. 

Hunter,  Robert,  Poverty,  N.  Y,  1905. 

Le  Play,  F.,  La  Reforme  Sociale,  Tours,  1 878,  S  vols. 

Missiaen,  Berthold,  O.  M.  Cap.,  L'Appauvrissement  des 
Masses,  Louvain,  1911. 

Clark,  J.  B.,  The  Distribution  of  Wealth,  N.  Y.,  1889. 

Woods,  Robert  A.,  ed.,  Americans  in  Process,  Boston,  1903. 

Bliss,  Wm.  D.  P.,  ed..  New  Encyclopedia  of  Social  Re- 
form, N,  Y.,  1908. 

Clark,  Sue  Ainslie,  &  Edith  Wyatt,  Making  Both  Ends 
Meet,  N.  Y,  1911. 

Streightoff,  Frank  Hatch,  The  Standard  of  Living  among 
the  Industrial  People  of  America,  Boston,  1911. 

Butler,  Eliz.  Beardsley,  Saleswomen  in  Mercantile 
Stores,  N.  Y,  1912. 

Ryan,  John  A.,  A  Living  Wage,  N.  Y.,  1906. 

Devine,  Edw.  T.,  Principles  of  Relief,  N.  Y.,  1904. 

Bousanquet,  Helen,  The  Standard  of  Life,  London,  1908. 

Chapin,  Coit,  The  Standard  of  Living  among  Working- 
men's  Families  in  New  York  City,  N.  Y.,  1909. 

Journal  of  Political  Economy. 

Economic  Journal. 

Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics. 

Journal  of  the  American  Sociological  Society. 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  &  Social 
Science. 

The  Survey. 

International  Journal  of  Ethics. 


[136] 


INDEX 


Accidents:  90ff. 
Alphonsus^  Saint:  See 

Liguori 
Aquinas:  11,18,28,29,46 

Ballerini,  Antonio:  22,  27, 

28,  29,  45 
Bouquillon,  Thomas:  11 
Bo  wen,  Louise  de  Koven: 

98 
Browning,  Eliz.  B.:  132 
Butler,  Eliz.  B. :  4,  43, 

51ff,  67,  96,  101,  102 

Capecelatro,  Card.:  9 

Capital  punishment:  28 

Carlyle,  Thomas:  35 f. 

Carver,  T.  N.:  60 

Chapin,  Coit:  43 

Charity:  Consumers*  obli- 
gations of,  31  ff;  duties 
of,  11 

Cheapness:  demand  for, 
58ff. 

Chicago  Vice  Commission: 
95,  100,  101,  104 

Child-Labor:  93f. 

Child-Labor  Committee, 
National:  100 

Clark,  J.  B.:  65 

Common  good:  Scholastic 
conception  of,  28ff. 

r 


Competition:  19ff,  47ff,  55f. 

Compulsory  Arbitration : 
112 

Conscience,  Social:  131 

Consumers:  Duties  of,  13ff, 
l6f,  129ff;  individual  ac- 
tion, 107,  109,  114;  or- 
ganization    among,     109, 

110,  130;    responsibility 
of,  5ff. 

Consumers*    League:    110, 

111,  114ff. 
Consumption   (disease) : 

88ff. 
Co-operation  in  evil :  1 3,  23 
Costs  of  production :  60ff . 
Crawford,  Hanford:  60 
Cunningham,  W.:  20,  58, 

63 
Cuthbert,  Father:  108 

Dance  Halls:  97f. 

Dangerous  occupations: 
86ff. 
;    De  Lugo,  Card.  John, 
S.  J.:  25,  26,44 

Department  Stores:  100, 
103 

Devine,  Edward  T.:  66f. 

Dust:  87f. 

Duty :  definition  of,  11;  de- 
volution of,  13ff. 

137] 


INDEX 


Employers:    duties    of    di- 
rect, 12;  liability  of,  17 
English  Poor  Law:  62 
Expenses  of  production: 

Food,  Insufficient:  78ff. 

Goldmark,  Josephine:  127 
Green,  T.  H.:  32 
Gury,  J.  P.:  10 

Hibbert  Journal:  131 
Hours  of  work:  4,  84f. 
Housing  conditions:  77ff, 

95f. 
Hunter,  Robert:  128 

Industrial  Commission, 

U.  S.:68,  87,  94 
Injustice,  definition  of :  11 
Innocent:  indirect  killing 

of,  lawful,  28 
Interest:  15 
Interest-takers,  duties  of: 

15 

Justice:  Consumers'  obliga- 
tions of,  13ff;  definition 
of,  11;  duties  of,  1 1 

Kelleher,  Rev.  J. :  9 
Kelley,  Florence:  114 

Label:  See  White  List 
Labor,  N.  Y.  S.  Bureau  of: 

68f,  74ff,  88 
Labor,  N.  Y.  S.  Commis- 
sioner of:  82,  91 


Labor,  U.  S.  Bureau  of:  16, 

42,  43,  52ff,  61,  68,  70ff, 

77ff,  89ff,  96,  97,  113 
Labor,  U.  S.  Commission 

of:  84 
Law :  binding  force  of  civil : 

28 
Lehmkuhl,  Aug. :  29 
Leo  XIII:  8 
Liguori,  Saint  Alphonsus: 

18,23,27,28,29 
Living,  Standard  of:  9, 

38ff,  66 
Lowell,  Josephine  Shaw: 

117 

Maistre,  de:  111 

Mazzini,  Giuseppe:  5 

Mercantile  Employers* 
Bill:  122 

Middle  Ages,  Medieval 
system:  19f. 

Minneapolis  Vice  Commis- 
sion: 54,  103 

Morris,  William:  132 

Mouth,  The:  116 

Necessity:  definition  of,  33 
Neighbor:  meaning  of,  31 
Night  work:  84 f. 
Noldin,  H.:  29 

O'Reilly,  John  Boyle:  127 

Packingtown:  96 
Paine,  Thomas:  5 
Pittsburgh  Survey:  51,  52, 
66 


D38  3 


INDEX 


Pius  X:  8 
Poisoning:  86f. 
Poverty:  127ff. 
Price:  ISff,  57f,  60 
Property:    justification    of 
private,    29 ;    superfluous, 

Prostitution:  95,  lOlff. 

Rent-takers:  duties  of,  14 
Right:  definition  of,  lOff. 
Ryan,  John  A.:  15,  42f. 

Saloon,  The:  99 
Scudder,  Vida:  131 
Seager,  H.  R.:  6l 
Sidgwick,  H.:  61 
Social  argument:  13,  27 ff. 
Southwell,  Robert:  105, 128 
Speeding-up,  85 f. 
State:  authority  of,  28 
State-Insurance:  112 
Suarez,  Francisco,  S.  J.: 

27,  28,  46 
Subsistence  standard:  39 
Suicide:  29f. 
Survey:  67,  98,  101,  104, 

123 


Thomas,  Saint:  See  Aquinas 
Thorold,  Algar:  97 
Title,  just:  22f. 
Tuberculosis:  88ff. 

Ulpian:  11 
Unemployed:  66 
Unemployment:  68 f. 

Value:  13,  17ff. 
Ventilation:  79ff. 

Wage,  Minimum:  42,  46, 

112,  113 
Wages:  4,  48ff,  62ff,  66S, 

70ff;   right  to   living,   9; 

standard  of  living,  8,  9 
War:  29 
White  List:  55,  118,  124, 

125 
Williams,  A.  B. :  98 
Women :  conditions  of  work, 

4;     hours     of    work,     4; 

wages,  4,  67 
Work:  conditions  of,  4, 

51ff;  right  to,  9 
Working  Women's  Society: 

117,  119 


D393 


VITA 

J.  Elliot  Ross  was  born  in  Baltimore  in  1884.  In 
1902  he  graduated  from  Loyola  College  of  that  city 
after  the  ordirary  classico-mathematieal  course.  He 
received  the  degree  of  M.A.  from  George  Washing- 
ton University,  Washington,  D.  C,  in  19O8,  his 
major  being  English  Literature  and  his  minors  Soci- 
ology and  Economics.  The  subject  of  his  disserta- 
tion was:  "The  Element  of  Social  Reform  in  Some 
Nineteenth  Century  English  Literature."  Upon  en- 
tering the  Paulist  Novitiate  at  the  Catholic  Univer- 
sity in  1909^  he  also  took  up  further  sociological 
studies.  He  was  ordained  priest  of  the  Congregation 
of  St.  Paul  the  Apostle  May  24,  1912.  At  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Catholic  University  in  that  year, 
he  received  the  degrees  S.T.B.  and  Ph.D. 


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